Olympic Village's Covid-19 bubble sees first positive test
The first resident of the
Olympic Village has tested positive for Covid-19, Tokyo Olympic organisers said
on Saturday.
Officials said it was not an
athlete with the Games opening in just under a week on July 23.
Tokyo officials including Seiko
Hashimoto, the president of the organising committee, confirmed the case and
said the positive test was Friday. Organisers say for confidentiality purposes
they can only offer a vague description and few details.
"In the current situation,
that positive cases arise is something we must assume is possible," said
Toshiro Muto, the CEO of the Tokyo organising committee.
The person is identified simply
as a "games-concerned personnel." The person is also listed as a
non-resident of Japan. Tokyo officials said the person was placed in a 14-day
quarantine.
The Olympic Village on Tokyo Bay
will house about 11,000 athletes during the Olympics and thousands of other
staff.
IOC President Thomas Bach said
this week there was "zero" risk of athletes in the village passing on
the virus to Japanese or other resident of the village.
Organisers say since July 1 and
as of Saturday, 44 people under their "jurisdiction" have tested
positive. None involved people living in the village and most are identified as
"contractors" for Tokyo 2020 and "games-concerned
personnel." The list includes one athlete — who tested positive on July 14
— and three members of the media.
Of the 44, only 12 are listed as
"non-resident of Japan."
Organisers say that athletes and
staff who have been away from Tokyo at training camps are excluded from this
list and their accounting.
Tokyo officials said they could
not give an estimate of the number of people in the village as of Saturday.
New Covid-19 cases on Friday in
Tokyo were reported at 1,271. They were 822 a week ago, and it marks the 27th
straight day that cases were higher than a week previous. New cases on Thursday
were reported at 1,308, which was the highest in six months.