June 26, (THEWILL) –Â With an eye on organising safe Games, reports from the organisers of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics say they have set up arrangements to offer COVID-19 vaccines to all volunteers supporting the Olympic and Paralympics Games.
The plans are to ensure that all 70,000 volunteers working at Games venues will be able to secure vaccines for themselves so as to operate with the confidence of safety. This comes with the confirmation of complete vaccination for the numerous volunteers who will have direct contact with athletes.
The arrangements have now been expanded to cater for other volunteers from Wednesday, June 30 onwards. THEWILL recalls that volunteers involved in the delayed Games started receiving vaccines for COVID-19 earlier this month.
It is part of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s aim to inoculate around 2,500 workers per day until the end of August in a phased vaccination procedure.
Towards this end, the Japanese Government struck a deal with Pfizer to provide 40,000 people who will be working at the Games with the pharmaceutical company’s COVID-19 vaccine including staff, volunteers, and accredited media and health workers involved with the Olympics.
In general, the latest inoculation figures from the Japanese Government, which were published on Friday, show that 37.2 million doses have been administered to date with a total of 26.8 million going to the general population, including elderly people in the priority group of the rollout.
In addition, about 10.3 million medical staffers have received doses as well, which demonstrates an uptick in the pace of dosage administration. The current rate means that Japan is now regularly administering over one million doses per day.
At the moment, around 11.7 million people are believed to have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to date, representing around 9.2 per cent of the population in total.
As THEWILL reported earlier, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Tokyo 2020 organisers plan to implement a series of strict rules during the Games, which they claim will ensure the Olympics and Paralympics are safe and secure for all.
This includes a reduction in the number of accredited officials and banning visits to tourist areas.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
