Tokyo Olympics plans don’t follow "best science," US experts say

With less than two months until the Tokyo Olympics begin, a group of US public health experts are among the latest to warn that pushing forward with the rescheduled 2020 Games puts athletes -- and the public -- at risk amid the pandemic.    The experts, including Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, among other scientists, call for "urgent action" to assess the Covid-19 risks associated with the games and the additional measures that could be put in place to mitigate those risks.   The researchers wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine last week that the current plans to proceed with the Olympic Games are "not informed by the best scientific evidence."    In preparation for the Games, the IOC included various Covid-19 countermeasures in official playbooks, but the researchers commented that the playbooks could include more frequent Covid-19 testing, and they emphasized that plans for temperature checks could miss pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic cases.    The researchers also pointed out that In Japan, where the Olympic Games will be held, less than 5% of the population is vaccinated. They added that not all athletes participating in the Olympics may be able to get vaccinated, though the IOC says 75% of the Tokyo Olympic village residents are vaccinated, and that number will continue to grow.