Japan announced Monday it is planning to ramp up its COVID-19 protocols at airports after two Ugandan Olympic team members tested positive for the virus upon arrival to the country this past weekend.
Japanese officials will require Olympic athletes who are traveling from areas where the delta strain of the virus has been detected to get tested daily for seven days before flying to the Games, up from the current four-day period. They also are planning to conduct daily testing for the next 14 days for those athletes.
“No matter what measures you take, infected people would come in, and it is unavoidable,” Japanese Olympic Committee President Yasuhiro Yamashita said Monday.
The first positive test reportedly came from a Ugandan Olympic coach, who tested Saturday at Tokyo’s Narita airport and quarantined there. While the coach stayed behind, the rest of the nine-member team continued to travel to their pre-Olympics camp in Osaka, Japan.
Three days later, another Ugandan team member tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the rest of the team into quarantine at the hotel and seven local officials into self-quarantine.
Tokyo reported 317 new cases on Monday, the ninth consecutive day of increases, with an increase in cases of the delta variant. That could accelerate the resurgence to levels that might require another state of emergency during the Olympics, experts said.
In response to the new positive tests, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Sugarushed visited Tokyo’s Haneda international airport to inspect virus testing for arrivals and vowed to ensure appropriate border controls.
The Uganda case illustrated that Japan’s border health controls can be easily breached, Tokyo Medical Association Chairman Haruo Ozaki said Sunday on NHK public television.
“Apparently the border controls are not adequate, even though there has been plenty of time to work on them,” he said.
Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura said the entire team should have been quarantined at Narita airport.
Government officials initially defended the airport health controls as having properly detected and isolated the positive case, and said that contact tracing and isolation of those suspected of having had close contact was not their job but that of local health officials.
“Strict border control at airports is extremely important,” Yamashita said.
Experts have noted a significant increase in the movement of people in Tokyo and other metropolitan areas since the easing of a state of emergency on June 21 and warned of signs of a resurgence of infections in the Tokyo region.
This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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