Tokyo, July 27, (dpa/GNA) – The number of new infections in Tokyo has risen to a record high during the Olympic Games.
On Tuesday, the Japanese capital city reported 2,848 new infections within one day, which surpassed the previous high of 2,520 cases on January 7.
Experts had warned before the games began that new infections could rise to more than 3,000 within one day during the spectacle. The situation could become “critical,” they said. Tokyo is now in its fourth coronavirus state of emergency.
It is not the Olympic participants who are the main problem, Koichi Nakano, a professor of politics at Sophia University in Tokyo, recently told dpa.
Rather, he said, it is the fact that the games are taking place at all at a time when the population is increasingly “frustrated” by the ever-extended coronavirus state of emergency: “People are getting impatient and no longer listening to the government.”
Interest in the games is contributing to many citizens not staying at home, despite government appeals, as they try to get as close to the Olympics as possible, such as with cycling races.
GNA