Category Archives: Government

Government, Health, Japan, Society

Tokyo Olympics: Can the Games still go ahead?

OLYMPIC GAMES

IN ten weeks, the rescheduled Olympic Games are set to get underway. Yet, as the days count down, the opposition grows. A state of emergency in Japan’s capital city has been extended until the end of the month, with citizens there increasingly angry and hostile towards staging what they believe will be a “superspreader” event.

The plans of the organisers appear foolhardy rather than foolproof, with the playbooks of coronavirus protocols raising more questions than answers – the greatest of them being: Can the Olympics really go ahead?

Many residents in Tokyo have expressed disquiet and feel their views have been neglected by organisers. They have said it is a “recipe for disaster” if the Games go ahead and feel scared for their fellow citizens as the virus remains virulent and extremely dangerous.

While comprehensive playbooks have been published for athletes, officials and media, volunteers have received just a two-page pamphlet encouraging them to wear masks, use hand sanitiser and stay socially distanced.

Volunteers and residents are not expected to be subjected to the same level of coronavirus testing as other participants and will not be deemed as being in the “bubble”, so will be able to use public transport and visit restaurants and bars.

There is a firm belief that there is a significant risk for volunteers who have contact with people in the Olympic bubble, then go home to their families on public transport, who could very well be the ones who are contributing to this superspreader event.

From a moral standpoint, it is inconceivable that the Games should be held during a global pandemic, wasting money when so many people in the world are still dying.

What is really worrying the Japanese public is that little more than two per cent of the population have received the vaccine so far. Alarm bells are ringing that the Olympics are taking a priority over the vaccination programme.

A recent opinion poll showed 72 per cent of Japanese citizens want the Games to be cancelled or postponed again. Meanwhile, an online petition headlined, “Stop Tokyo Olympics”, has garnered more than 300,000 signatures since it launched last week.

Expert opinion

Professor Kentaro Iwata, who heads the division of infectious diseases at Kobe University Hospital, said: “This is not the right time and place to hold the Olympic Games. Some nations such as India are completely out of control. Many lives of people are at stake. Putting it altogether, this is not the right time to celebrate a huge human sport activity.”

Professor Iwata shot to prominence at the start of the pandemic when he boarded the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship and posted a YouTube video highlighting the poor infection control measures. Now he is similarly critical of the measures in place for Tokyo 2020.

“The measures are fairly sufficient to protect the athletes but the security of the surrounding people – such as coaches, drivers, media – are not really guaranteed under these measures,” says Iwata, who believes all spectators should be banned from the Games, not just those from overseas.

It recently emerged that Tokyo 2020 organisers had asked for 500 extra nurses to leave their hospitals and volunteer at the Games, with 10,000 medical professionals needed at the event overall.

Professor Iwata added: “They are trying to hold the Games and not minding the health of people because of the financial incentives.”

Holding the Games could set back the global fight against Covid-19. A risk of new variants of concern emerging and of infections being taken back to other countries should be of real concern, and particularly what happens after the Olympics.

Team GB athletes

Team GB’s top talent seemingly have no such concerns about how secure their bubble might be.

Olympic champion swimmer Adam Peaty says, “You are only as safe as your own behaviour… I don’t think it’s any different from being here. It’s about trusting the organisers but really it comes down to your own behaviour and making sure you are doing everything possible to not get Covid-19.”

Athletes will not have to quarantine when they arrive in Tokyo, but they will have daily coronavirus tests. They must wear masks except when eating, drinking, sleeping, training, or competing, and their movement will be restricted to their accommodation, training and competition venues.

Team GB have asked the Government if their athletes can receive both doses of the vaccine before they go to Japan, but they also have the option of using Pfizer jabs donated to the International Olympic Committee.

Team GB insists they are a very conditioned team in terms of Covid mitigation and have said they have every confidence that all 370 Team GB athletes will be on the start line fit and well and 100 per cent ready to compete.

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Government, Health, Society

One Covid jab helps to halve its spread

RESEARCH

A SINGLE dose of vaccine cuts the risk of spreading coronavirus by up to half, a major study has revealed.

Not only does the jab cut a person’s chance of catching Covid, it also greatly reduces their chances of passing it on should they get infected.

The research, which involved almost 1.5million adults, is the first of its kind to confirm the effectiveness of vaccines in curbing the virus’s spread.

Other studies have shown the jab massively reduce the odds of developing symptoms and ending up in hospital, even among the elderly and people with long-term health issues.

The latest analysis found that adults who received the Pfizer vaccine – but still caught the virus – were 49 per cent less likely to spread it to other household members than those who were not inoculated.

For the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, recipients were 38 per cent less likely to transmit it to others in their household. But the fact both vaccines dramatically reduce the virus’s ability to spread – as well as preventing serious illness – offers renewed hope they hold the key to a return to normal life.

This latest research further reinforces that vaccines are the best way out of this pandemic as they protect you and they may prevent you from unknowingly infecting someone in your household. A second dose provides the strongest possible protection.

The jabs’ ability to prevent virus transmission kicked in after only 14 days and they worked regardless of a person’s age or the number of people within their household, with whom they had close contact.

Dr Mary Ramsay, who is head of immunisation at Public Health England, which carried out the study, said: “While these findings are very encouraging, even if you have been vaccinated, it is really important that you continue to act like you have the virus, practise good hand hygiene and follow social distancing guidance.”

Previously, a major Oxford study found that a single dose of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or the Pfizer vaccine reduced symptomatic infection by nearly three quarters, compared to people who had not had the jab.

The authors were so encouraged by the findings they said the jabs would enable the country to control the pandemic without the need for future lockdowns.

The UK Government has announced that more than 13million adults had received both doses of the jab – a quarter of the population.

Although the researchers only looked at the vaccines’ effectiveness in cutting transmission at home, they believe they will also prevent its spread on public transport, in offices and in schools.

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Britain, Environment, Government, Politics, Society

Troops could be deployed to protect rainforests

ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY

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BRITISH soldiers could be sent in to battle to stop countries cutting down rainforests and drilling for oil, according to the former foreign secretary William Hague.

The former cabinet minister says the focus of the Armed Forces could soon switch from protecting energy supplies to guarding the natural environment.

“In the past the UK has been willing to use armies to secure and extract fossil fuels,” he writes in the Environmental Affairs journal. “But in the future, armies will be sent to ensure oil is not drilled and to protect natural environments.

“The UK will need to use all of its diplomatic capacity to ensure that these resources are not used and that natural environments are protected.”

Referring to Brazil, Lord Hague predicts that “as climate change climbs the hierarchy of important political issues, it will be increasingly difficult to square our climate change policy with agreeing a free trade deal with a country that clears a football pitch-sized area of the Amazon rainforest every minute.”

He also says Britain is too reliant on China for the components of electric batteries, warning that “it is now impossible for us to remain dependant on them in such a critical area”. As a result, our policies towards China and climate change have become unavoidably linked,” he adds.

Lord Hague, who was Conservative foreign secretary from 2010 to 2014, says Britain “cannot get away with talking the talk without walking the walk” on the climate.The UK has launched a strategy that will see the Armed Forces going as “green as possible”. In the last few days, the UK has said it will speed up cuts to emissions so that they would be reduced by 78 per cent by 2035, compared with 1990 levels.

TWO

THE Secret Intelligence Service has begun “green spying” to ensure nations uphold their climate change commitments, the head of MI6 has said.

Richard Moore, known in Whitehall as C, revealed the new form of espionage after world leaders made stronger pledges on tackling global warming.

“Our job is to shine a light in places where people might not want it shone,” he told Times Radio.

“And so clearly, we are going to support what is the foremost international foreign policy agenda item for this country and for the planet, which is around the climate emergency.

“Where people sign up to commitments on climate change, it is perhaps our job to make sure that actually what they are really doing reflects what they have signed up to.”

Mr Moore who took charge of MI6 in October, described the new task as “a bit like what we have always done around arms control”. He said: “On climate change, where you need everyone to come on board and to play fair, then occasionally just check to make sure they are.”

He declined to go into further detail about what “green spying” would involve and did not explicitly name any countries.

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