Covid Vaccines for the Tokyo Olympics Have Become a Political Issue
Around the world, sports officials are asking their governments to help get shots for their athletes.
The International Olympic Committee has a complicated view of whether athletes should be vaccinated for this summer’s Tokyo Games.
The IOC won’t require Covid-19 vaccines for competition, and doesn’t want athletes to cut the line. But it’s also directed national Olympic committees to try to get shots for their athletes.
The conflicting signals show what a touchy topic the vaccine has become ahead of Tokyo. Even discussing shots for athletes can provoke hostility as a slow vaccine rollout proceeds around the world among countries eager to turn the tide of deaths, case numbers and economic downturn. Yet sports officials in dominant Olympic nations say they’re pursuing the IOC’s request anyway.
Meanwhile, a longtime IOC member asserted in strong terms the importance of vaccines to the countries participating in the Tokyo Games, now just five months away.
“Unless you’re out of your f—ing mind, you should get vaccinated before you come,” said Dick Pound, in a recent interview with the Journal.
Responses from 20 Olympic countries surveyed by The Wall Street Journal indicate that many nations are willing to risk public blowback by at least seeking to advocate on behalf of athletes’ vaccination.
U.S. Olympic officials said they had raised the matter with the White House, though they also say they aren’t pushing for Team USA’s Tokyo delegation to be vaccinated ahead of more vulnerable people.
Officials in Greece, home of the ancient Olympic Games, have “asked our government to take into account that the members of our Olympic team should be vaccinated in time,” a spokesperson said.
New Zealand’s Covid-19 response minister has said the country would consider vaccinating athletes before the Tokyo Games if their turn in the nation’s vaccine rollout didn’t come up before then. The Russian Olympic Committee says it is ready, if necessary, to provide full assistance to Russian Olympic candidates in obtaining vaccines.
Olympic leaders in Australia have said they expect to have most athletes vaccinated against the virus by the summer. The Tokyo Games are scheduled to begin July 23. South Korea’s Olympic committee said it’s gathering information on who to vaccinate and when to do it. The Croatian committee says it has a plan with its government to get athletes vaccinated, though because of “the dynamics of vaccine delivery,” it doesn’t know for sure that it will happen in time for the Summer Games.
And in Hungary, government-arranged vaccination has begun for 868 coaches and athletes, including more than 150 athletes who are preparing not for the Tokyo Games, but the Beijing Winter Olympics that are set to follow in February 2022.
Across the world, one of the hottest political questions is the distribution of a vaccine for which demand is high, supply is scarce and delivery is complex. Many countries have sought to prioritize people at high risk of complications if they contract the virus, as well as healthcare providers and other essential workers. There is fierce debate about the relative merits of each of those groups.
The idea of rushing to vaccinate athletes, especially as many schools and businesses remain closed, has prompted bitter reactions even as some public health advocates say sports stars could serve as role models for vaccination.
According to UBS, at the current rate of vaccination only about 10% of the world will be inoculated by the end of this year, and 21% by the end of 2022. Infectious disease experts estimate that the percentage of the population requiring a vaccine to achieve herd immunity is 70% or higher.
Most Covid vaccines require two doses several weeks apart, and it takes a few weeks after the second dose for the full benefits to kick in, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. That means that to get maximum protection through vaccination, athletes should have had their first shot two months before they leave for Tokyo, or around the third week in May.
Recently released Olympic “playbooks” describing virus-mitigation measures for the Games said vaccination wouldn’t be a requirement of participating in the Tokyo Games, and that the IOC supports the priority vaccination of vulnerable groups and front-line medical workers.
But one playbook also called on national Olympic committees to encourage and assist their delegations to get vaccinated in their home countries. The playbook said the IOC had sent a letter to every national committee to “actively engage with their respective governments on this matter and to report back to the IOC in early February 2021.”
The IOC said in a statement to the Journal that “this is to contribute to the safe environment of the Games, but also out of respect for the Japanese people, who should be confident that everything is being done to protect not only the participants, but also the Japanese people themselves.” It also said it had learned that “a number of national governments have already taken positive decisions in this respect.”
One question is what Olympic leaders will do with delegations from countries whose governments end up unable, or unwilling, to help secure vaccines.
The IOC didn’t respond to a question about whether it would take steps to secure vaccines for such delegations.
Among dominant Olympic nations who responded to the Journal query, only Germany and the Netherlands said that they would not discuss athlete doses with their governments until priority groups had been vaccinated. Italy said the country was in the process of forming a new government.
For some others where the conversation has begun, it remains a delicate matter. The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee said that its chief executive, Sarah Hirshland, met with the White House Office of Public Engagement earlier in February and discussed “the need for Covid-19 vaccines for Team USA athletes at the appropriate time, and following distribution to priority populations, with the best case being prior to domestic trials and the Tokyo Games this summer.”