On May 27th, Naoto Ueyama, president of the Japanese Doctors’ Union, said: “The 2021 Tokyo Olympics may give birth to the Olympic variant'.” His words immediately caused an uproar all over the world. It is only a month away from the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics scheduled on July 23, but the fourth wave of the COVID epidemic is breaking out in Japan. Can the Tokyo Olympics be held as scheduled, and should it be held at all?

As time progresses, the debate on whether or not to hold the Olympic Games as scheduled has also become more and more intense. While the Japanese government expressed its determination to insist on holding the Tokyo 2021 Olympics as scheduled, it urgently studied epidemic prevention countermeasures and formulated more and more detailed epidemic prevention manuals. However, a recent public opinion survey in Japan showed that 80% of Japanese people opposed the holding and called for the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics. Japanese mainstream media and chiefs of large consortia have also begun to call on the government to cancel the Olympic Games, including SoftBank’s boss Masayoshi Son.

Recently, the US CDC has issued a travel warning for Japan over the country's Covid-19 surge, amid heightened scrutiny just weeks before the Tokyo Olympics, advising Americans to "avoid any travel to Japan", despite President Biden's statement of "supporting the Japanese government". The most disturbing issue is that the athletes are anxiously waiting for the final notice - to go or not to go?

On April 28, the Japanese government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee held a five-party meeting along with the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, and announced a new epidemic prevention manual, claiming to adopt the best and the most complete COVID prevention measures, and announced to the world that "Tokyo Olympics will definitely be held as scheduled." On the same day, the Japanese medical community rose to speak out against it. The head of the COVID-19 response subcommittee was Chairman Shigeru Omino. He strongly opposed hosting the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in the Health, Labour and Welfare Committee of the House of Representatives. He said, "the potential level of infection and medical distress brought by the Olympics should be discussed carefully." The Japanese Medical Association is also on his side.

Even politicians who are most concerned about calculating economic benefits are highly opposed to holding the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. For example, Toshihiro Nikai, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, said that "it may choose to stop due to the spread of the COVID -19 epidemic." The possible options have been studied. In addition to the unprecedented "empty stadium" suggested by the chairman of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee Hashimoto Seiko, there is also a 50% occupancy rate, or a total of all ticket buyers in Japan can enter, etc. However, with the expansion and intensification of the epidemic, coupled with Japan's very low vaccination rate of 2%, it is less and less likely to host the Olympic Games. If the venue is held empty, a lot of transactional work and economic losses will occur, such as ticket refund procedures. It can be seen that there are fewer and fewer practical options, and time is becoming more and more pressing. The whole world is anxiously watching whether this "Olympics during the global pandemic" can be held?

What is the current situation of Japan's economy? The Japanese economic bubble began to break since the real estate bubble of Tokyo in 1991, and then shaked the economy of whole country. It brought Japan into the era of economic contraction of deflation for 30 years, and has been struggling in the predicament of reviving the economy. The Japanese government has exhausted the monetary easing policy and other available regulatory tools. In 2016, the Central Bank of Japan cut the interest rate to - 0.1%, and now the private bank deposits are only 0.001%, which can be regarded as 0. Although many prime ministers have made economic recovery their top priority, only Junichiro Koizumi has made some substantive reforms to improve the economy. However, under the shock of COVID-19 in 2020, Japan's GDP dropped by 4.6%. The data released by the Japanese Cabinet Office indicated on May 18th that in the first quarter, Japan's GDP dropped by 5.1%. Due to the shrinking domestic consumption and the decrease of international tourism revenue, it is expected that the second and third quarters of the GDP will be even worse. Obviously, whether the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games is held or cancelled, it will bring losses to Japan's economy.

Look at the current situation of COVID-19 in Japan. As of May 28th, the COVID-19 death toll in Japan was 735,211 and 12,691 deaths. The Japanese COVID-19 death rate is much lower than that in European countries and America, and the recovery rate was the highest. Therefore, the author is still confident in Japan's ability to control the COVID-19 pandemic spread and saving patients.

Judging from the distribution of different age groups, the number of confirmed infections in Japan is concentrated in people between 20 and 59 years old, unlike the United States where the highest risk of infection is the elderly over 60. Therefore, Japan has a great risk of rapid spread, because this group of people has jobs, the most mobility, and the most rate of public transportation, so they can spread the Coronavirus faster. However, the highest death rate from Coronavirus in Japan are the elderly over 70 years old, accounting for more than 90% of the total deaths.

It is worthy of further discussion that the death rate of elderly people living in nursing homes in Japan accounts for only 14% of all deaths, while it accounts for 45% in the United States, and 49% in France. This is because after long-term advancement and improvement, Japanese nursing homes have always had relatively complete medical and nursing services. At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, measures such as isolation and prohibition of family visits were implemented, coupled with Japan’s advanced medical care. Advanced technology provided for a high recovery rate, so the death rate of elderly people living in nursing homes in Japan was not high. It can be said that these elderly people are lucky. However, nursing homes in other developed countries in Europe and the United States account for a high proportion of elderly deaths. Nursing homes are the earliest areas to be severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, more than 170,000 elderly people have died in nursing homes in the United States, which is why the United States has invested heavily in eldercare reforms.

The author Yoko Marikawa is an expert in the elderly care industry in Japan and a pioneer in the elderly care industry. She has long been committed to ensuring and improving the well-being of the elderly by improving the management of nursing homes and the quality of elderly care services. In recent years, in order to find effective solutions to the problems of poor medical services for the elderly, elder abuse, the surge of elderly dementia patients, and the shortage of eldercare workers, Yoko Marikawa has devoted a lot of energy in researching how to use high technology to help solve these serious and urgent social issues, including the use of nursing robots, quantitative management and monitoring systems, etc. This article is an article in Yoko Marikawa's newspaper column "Yoko Marikawa Talks about Eldercare".