Suspend the Olympic Games

In this statement, I write reasons why we should suspend the Tokyo Olympic Games. First, there is a risk of spreading new variants. During the Games, tens of thousands of people have come to Tokyo, including athletes, officials, and the press, from all over the world. Because of inadequate quarantine at airports, infected people have been identified one after another in Japan. It is said that the contact between the Olympic people and the public is blocked off by the “bubble method”, but on such a large scale, it is not possible to completely cut off the contact.

There are only several countries in the world that are analyzing the whole genome of viruses like the UK. Even in countries that are analyzing the genome, highly infectious variants were discovered after a delay of several months. There is a possibility of influx of the infection from countries where the infection is spreading, where virus test and genome analysis are not yet sufficiently done, where vaccines are not available, and where a variant strain may be occurring. The delta variant has slipped through quarantine and is currently spreading in Japan.

The “bubble” system was successful in the NBA (National Basketball Association) tournament last year in Florida, but the scale of the Olympic Games is completely different. There are many venues outside of Tokyo, and many routes to travel. It is impossible that everything is truly blocked. There is no way that all the domestic staff accompanying the athletes can be checked. There is also the problem of inevitable contact between athletes. It is difficult to enforce thorough inspections and procedures for entering people into Japan. Therefore, considering the risk of bringing in tens of thousands of people from a pandemic world, the event should be cancelled.

The second reason for suspending the Games is the risk of heat stroke in the summer in Tokyo. Global warming has been affecting people’s health, and every summer, the Japanese islands is hit by heat waves, with many deaths due to heat stroke caused by abnormally high temperatures and humidity. “The heat index, or Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), is considered to be a high alert when the temperature exceeds 28 degrees Celsius, and the number of heat stroke patients increases significantly. The Japan Sports Association issued a guideline to stop strenuous exercise when the index is 28 degrees Celsius or higher, and to stop exercise when the index is 31 degrees Celsius or higher.

In 2007, the Chicago Marathon was cancelled due to hundreds of cases of heat stroke, In 2016, during the U.S. National Qualifying Marathon in Los Angeles, the temperature reached 26 degrees Celsius, only 70% of runners were able to finish the race. This year’s Tokyo Games will be held in the Northern Hemisphere in the summer, the health of the marathoners and other competitors should be a concern. 

The latest climate prediction model research shows that the risk of future summer Olympic Games in the Northern Hemisphere is very high, with only about 1% of major cities escaping the prediction of a heat index of 26 degrees Celsius or higher until 2085, and only about 6% of cities escaping the prediction of 28 degrees Celsius or higher. In other words, most cities will be at high risk of hosting the Games on high alert days. It is important to protect athletes from the health hazards of serious global warming. It is humanely justified to suspend the Tokyo Games if the weather is abnormal.

Yasuharu Tokuda, MD, MPHDirector, Muribushi Okinawa Center for Teaching Hospitals, Okinawa, Japan

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My name is Midori Kawashima. I have been a nurse for 74 years and have always focused on clinical nursing practice. I am still been involved in nursing education and research. While communicating with nurses I keep on talking and writing about my experiences.

In May, when Japan was hit by the third wave of COVID-19, the number of severely ill people nationwide reached a record high, and hospitals in the Kansai region reported a life-threatening triage crisis. A nurse at a university hospital in Tokyo cried out to me: “I can’t take it anymore. Please help me!”

She is a mid-career nurse, a woman who loves her job, works with pride, and had been working in a COVID-19 ward since early last year. She said, “I’ve been working hard until today, but the staff is exhausted with the increasing number of severely ill patients. Some of them are depressed or choosing to quit, and the manpower shortage is at its peak. I love nursing and I’ve been doing it for a long time, but I can’t do it anymore.”

This was the same time that the media reported the news that the Organizing Committee of the Olympics was requesting the Japan Nurses Association to dispatch 500 nurses.

The work environment and conditions for nurses has always been difficult, but it became harder and harder with the spread of COVID-19. For example, nurses in the ICU are soaked in their own sweat under their PPE, and cannot even break to drink water or use the toilet. Even after the doctors leave for the green zone, they have to stay in the red zone for at least four hours, sometimes seven to eight hours, providing life-saving treatment and patient care, and sometimes doing other work beyond their normal duties.

Even in the wards other than the ICU, nurses have made an effort to fulfill their duties faithfully. They are not allowed to go home for fear of infecting their families, and when they do come home, they cannot even hold their young children. Some nurses work late and sleep in the hospital’s nap room or in a hotel at their own expense.

The seriousness of the situation in the medical field can be imagined from the social networking site that reported the tragic suicide of a nurse in a COVID-19 ward. I don’t speak in detail, but most of the more than 800 comments on the post were words of shock and mourning for the death, and anger at the inept government for pushing the situation to this point. 5,233 shares indicate the strength of people’s interest in the harsh reality of the medical field.

We nurses strongly protest the forced Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and sincerely hope that the events will be cancelled, not only to prevent similar incidents from happening again, but also to protect the lives of all potential recipients of medical care. 2021.7.10 Midori Kawashima: Honorary Professor, Japanese Red Cross College of Nursing

Midori.K.英文 https://heiwa-inochi.sakuraweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ba1cecb8172d926de18c50868ced0c1.pdfMidori

July 1st, 2021

Many medical professionals feel a sense of danger for holding the Olympics under a pandemic. Some medical organizations have already issued statements against holding them. Since the Olympics are a global event, we “Medical, Care and Welfare Workers Network for Lives and Livelihoods” issued a statement in English here, in order to appeal it to the foreigners coming to Japan for Olympics. There are many medical organizations and individuals, including medical, nursing and welfare workers that have already agreed with this statement, so we would like to make an assertion.

（https://heiwa-inochi.sakuraweb.com/オリンピック中止を求める声明文/）

• We are very worried whether or not we can protect the health of the people involved in the Olympics.

Medical professionals have long been concerned about the risk of heat stroke at the Tokyo Olympics. In Tokyo, summer temperatures are rising year by year. Ambulances were dispatched 400 times in July and 4,359 times in August in 2020 due to heat stroke. In addition to that, we are experiencing a pandemic. Regarding the vaccination status in Japan, only 10.2% of people have been fully vaccinated (as of June 27). During the 4th wave of the pandemic, the medical system collapsed in Kansai and Hokkaido. Many people died from COVID-19 infections without receiving sufficient medical care at home (a total of 403 people died at home from March 2020 to May 14, 2021 — announced by the National Police Agency.) Now,we are concerned about the 5 th wave coming. Medical professionals are exhausted due to more than a year of hard work and stress. Some people have left their positions because of depression, and there are even fewer people left to support their sites. In long-term care and welfare facilities, infected residents cannot move to medical facilities, and a small number of long-term care workers who do not have medical knowledge have to provide care. We believe that only we are capable of clearly explaining the situation regarding medical care, welfare, and long-term care in Japan. We strongly wish to let the world know how dangerous it is to hold the Olympics.

• We are very worried that during the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, there could be a worst-case-scenario in which we would have to perform triage, making life and death　choices over COVID-19 patients.

As shown in ② above, by holding the Olympics in Japan, where medical availability will be severely limited, more and more people may end up receiving less than sufficient medical care, so there is a possibility that the number of citizens being at risk of their lives will increase by having these big events.  We hope that there will not be any situations in which we have to conduct triage at these events. 

The government, IOC, and JOC are strongly pushing to hold the Olympics despite opposition from many Japanese people and a decline in the number of volunteers for the event. We have less than a month before they are scheduled to start.

In order to cancel or postpone this event, there is no other way than to appeal to the common sense of the people who are involved in the Olympics all over the world. This is a final appeal from Japanese medical personnel with the hope that they will reconsider coming to Japan this summer.

Co-representatives

Source: Medical, Care and Welfare Workers Network for Lives and Livelihoods

Michiko Amaha, Honorary Head of Kanita Women’s Village 

Mami Ito: Director, Hananotani Clinic

Midori Kawashima, Professor Emeritus, Japanese Red Cross College of Nursing 

Misato Kojima, Representative, NPO Kurashinet-Enn 

Takashi Sawada, Director, Minatomachi Medical Center 

Naoko Takaoka, Family Physician, Ohta Hospital 

Hiroshi Honda, Deputy Director, Association for Enlightenment and Learning of 

Healthcare System in Japan

Supervisor

Yasuharu Tokuda: Director, Muribushi Okinawa Center for Teaching Hospitals

オリンピックは中止、さもなくば中断せよ

徳田安春　群星沖縄臨床研修センター長

理由の一つは、新たな変異株の移入リスクだ。オリンピックでは、選手と関係者、報道陣など全体で数万人もの人が世界から入ってくる。これまで水際対策も不十分だった中で、感染者の国内移入が次々にみつかっている。五輪関係者と国民との接触を断つという「バブル方式」を採用していると言うが、これだけの規模であり、厳密に完全に接触を断つことができていない。

世界では、イギリスのようにウイルスのゲノム解析をやっている国はむしろわずかである。解析している国でも数か月遅れで「これは感染力が強い」などの事実が発見されている。感染拡大地域でしかも検査や分析も十分できていない国、ワクチンも打てない、変異株が発生しているかもしれない国からの流入が当然ありうるのだ。今問題になっているデルタ株も「危険だ」と言われながら結局、検疫をすり抜け、国内での市中感染が拡大している。

バブル方式は、昨年のＮＢＡ・全米バスケットボール協会がフロリダでやった大会で成功したとされているが、五輪は全く規模が違う。東京以外にも会場が多数あり、移動のルートも多数ある。すべて本当に遮断されているとはありえない。随行する国内のスタッフすべてにチェックが効くはずもない。選手同士の接触は避けられないという問題もある。入国前の検査や手続きをどうやって確認するのかも含め、パンデミック状態の世界から数万の人を入れるリスク考えると中止するべきだ。

理由の二つ目は東京の夏における熱中症被害のリスクだ。地球温暖化は人々の健康に影響を与えてきており、毎年の夏に日本列島は熱波に襲われ、歴史的に異常な高温多湿で熱中症での死亡者が多数出ている。「暑さ指数」すなわち湿球黒球温度WBGT（Wet Bulb Globe Temperature）が28℃を超えると厳重警戒とされ、熱中症患者が著しく増えることがわかっており、日本体育協会は、指数28℃以上では激しい運動は中止、指数31℃以上では運動は原則中止、という指針を出している。

2007年のシカゴマラソン大会では、数百人規模の熱中症ケースが続出したために大会は途中で中止となった。2016年に最高気温が26°Cであったロスアンゼルスで行なわれたアメリカ代表予選マラソン大会では、70%の選手のみが完走できた。今回予定の東京大会は夏に北半球で開催される大会なので、当然ながらマラソンなどの競技者の健康状態が心配になる。最新の気候予測モデル研究により、北半球で今後のオリンピック大会の夏開催はアスリートの健康状態の悪化をもたらすリスクが非常に高いということがわかった。2085年までの間で、暑さ指数26度以上の予測を逃れた主要都市は約1％のみで、28度以上でも約6％であった。つまり、ほとんどの都市は厳重警戒日に大会を主催するリスクが高いとされた。深刻な地球温暖化による健康被害からアスリートを守ることは大切である。異常気象であれば東京大会を中断することは人道的に正当化されるのだ。

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