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1 1 (June 15, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/govedsq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional *aResearch Service The Tokyo Olympic Summer Games June 15, 2021 Japan and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have vowed to go ahead with the 2020 Olympic Summer Games beginning on July 23, 2021; the games were postponed in 2020 due to the global Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Japan has curbed the pandemic to under 14,200 total deaths out of a population of around 125 million. The virus has continued to spread, due in part to the emergence of more communicable variants and Japan's slow progress on vaccinating the population. In April 2021, the Japanese government declared new states of emergency in several cities, including Tokyo. As of mid-June 2021, Japan's daily infections averaged under 2,000 per day, with around 5% of Japan's population fully vaccinated. Japan's national vaccination campaign started in mid-February-about two months after many other developed countries. Acautious vaccine approval process and a cumbersome bureaucratic approach to vaccination led to a slow rollout, but the pace of vaccinations increased in June. By the middle of June, around 800,000 shots were being administered daily and between 8% and 10% of the population of the greater Tokyo region-primarily the elderly-had received at least one dose. Japan trails behind the United States and other countries in vaccinating its population, presenting increased risk for any Japanese athletes, volunteers, and spectators that may attend the Games. Olympics a Political Test for Suga A significant portion of the Japanese public opposes holding the Games and disapproves of the government's handling of the pandemic, according to opinion polls. Proceeding with the Games could imperil Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's premiership. Japanese public health experts, the leader of the largest opposition party, and some major newspaper editorial pages have urged Suga's government to reconsider, citing the risk of an international outbreak and further spread of the virus within Japan. In May, the State Department issued a Level 4 do not travel advisory for Japan due to a very high level of COVID-19; in June it lowered the advisory to a Level 3 reconsider travel warning. Suga inherited the challenge of hosting the Games from his predecessor Shinzo Abe, who resigned in August 2020. Suga's approval ratings have fallen to new lows over his handling of the pandemic, and ahead of key political challenges: in September his ruling Liberal Democratic Party is expected to hold a leadership election, and parliamentary elections are to be held by October. Tokyo's options for canceling or postponing the Olympic Games are limited. The IOC, the city of Tokyo, the Japanese Olympic Committee, and the organizing committee of the Olympic Games are all parties to Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN11691 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Membersand Committeesof Congress

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