Maravi Express
International Olympic Committee (IOC) has asked all its national associations’ athletes to continue preparing for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games following fears of the deadly Coronavirus that has hard-hit China and most parts of the Eastern world.
A press statement from the IOC Executive Board says a joint task force was created in mid-February, involving the IOC, Tokyo 2020 organisers, the government of Japan and the World Health Organization (WHO) in monitoring the situation on the ground.
“The IOC appreciates and supports the measures being taken, which constitute an important part of Tokyo’s plans to host safe and secure Games.
“The IOC will continue to follow the valuable advice and cooperation of WHO, as the leading United Nations agency on this topic.”
The IOC also praised the great unity and solidarity of the athletes, National Olympic Committees, International Federations and governments.
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It welcomes the close collaboration and flexibility with regard to the preparations for the Games, to take place from July 24 to August 9 and particularly the qualification events.
“All stakeholders continue to work closely together to address the challenges of the coronavirus.
“The IOC will keep supporting the athletes by providing the latest information and developments, which are accessible for athletes worldwide on the Athlete365 website,” said the statement.
Dr. Ghebreyesus at a news conference in Geneva
Meanwhile, WHO announced on Tuesday that the global mortality rate for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, was 3.4 percent.
The New York Times quotes WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as saying at a news conference in Geneva that Covid-19 is deadlier than the seasonal flu, but does not transmit as easily.
“Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported Covid-19 cases have died,” Dr. Tedros is quoted as saying. “By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected.”
The New York Times report says the estimate most likely takes into account the growing number of infections being recorded outside China, mostly in South Korea, Iran and Italy.
Preventive measures in China
“While many people globally have built up immunity to seasonal flu strains, Covid-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity,” meaning more people can be infected and some will suffer severe illnesses, as according to Dr. Tedros.
“The coronavirus does not transmit as efficiently as the flu but “causes more severe disease,” he added.
When the coronavirus crisis was concentrated in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the new virus was first found, the WHO said that the mortality rate of the disease ranged from 0.7 percent outside of Wuhan to as high as 4 percent inside the city.
China’s city of Wuhan
The organization also said that the epidemic would affect different countries in different ways.
Data from the Chinese government shows that the mortality rate in that country is about 3.7 percent, with most deaths reported in Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei.
Hospitals in South Korea struggle to find beds for thousands of infected patients.
The South Korean government scrambled on Wednesday to find hospital beds for thousands of people infected with the new coronavirus, as the country reported a higher number of new cases than China, the center of the outbreak.
South Korea reported 516 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of infected patients to 5,328, including 32 deaths.
By contrast, China, once the leading source of cases, recorded only 119 new cases.
Nearly 90 percent of the South Korean patients were residents of Daegu, a southeastern city, and nearby towns.
In Daegu alone there were 4,006 patients, but more than half were still waiting for hospital beds. Most of the patients, the authorities said, showed only mild symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Heath officials on Wednesday began transporting patients to government, corporate and religious sites, where rooms were refitted to serve as temporary clinics.
Employees work to prevent coronavirus in South
Korea
They also transported more serious patients to military and state-run hospitals in nearby cities and provinces.
“Daegu is in a very difficult situation,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said in the city on Wednesday. “Hundreds of newly commissioned military doctors and nurses were being flown into Daegu to help the disease-control operations.
“We can win this war against Covid-19 when we all fight together,” he added.
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South Korea has tested more than 130,000 people for the virus, as it has raced to find and isolate infected people.
Across the country, the government is operating 48 drive-through testing centers, where people can be examined without getting out of their cars, in an effort to limit the chances of exposure to other people.