TOKYO: Australia’s softball team came in Japan to get a pre-Olympic coaching camp Tuesday, even as a vast majority of the Japanese people opposes holding the planet’s most important multi-sports occasion in a nation in which the COVID-19 vaccine rollout was slow.
Their birth arrived as a high government spokesman stated Japan, combating a fourth tide of COVID-19 infections, intended to begin vaccinations at universities and offices about June 21 to accelerate the nation’s inoculation drive.
Only about 3 percent of Japan’s population is completely vaccinated from COVID-19.
Vaccinations of all Japan’s Olympic athletes Will Start on Tuesday.
The Australian Olympic squad, the very first national group to visit Japan for training because the Games were postponed a year because of the outbreak, left Sydney on Monday to get a 47-day camp at the central Japanese city of Ota, some 80km (50 kilometers ) northwest of Tokyo.
All members of this delegation were vaccinated and are scheduled to be analyzed for its novel coronavirus daily throughout their stay, stated an official of Otaan industrial town with a population of about 220,000.
Kyodo news agency said all had tested negative to the virus on coming in Tokyo.
Members of the group, wearing facial masks and green T-shirts, waved to press after moving through customs then boarded a bus to the three-hour visit to Ota.
NHK people TV stated three floors of the hotel was roped off to their private use to minimise contact with other visitors.
Australia have won awards in every one of the four preceding Olympic softball contests, including the bronze medal in 1996, 2000 and 2008 along with a silver in 2004.
They’ll play the opening match against hosts Japan, that won gold at 2008, on July 21, two weeks ahead of the official launch ceremony of the Games.
Japan has prevented the large scale infections suffered by a number of different states, but serious cases have been growing in the most recent epidemic and 10 areas such as Tokyo will stay below a state of crisis at least till June 20.
Over 741,000 instances are recorded and almost 13,000 deaths.
Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa told a press conference which 105 Japanese municipalities had cancelled plans to sponsor overseas teams before the Games, many since the delegations will go straight to the Athletes Village at Tokyo, the Nikkei daily stated.
In a survey released by the Nikkei on Monday, over 60 percent of respondents were in favor of postponing the Games repeatedly or scrapping them completely.