Japan’s top automaker pulls TV advertisements from event overshadowed by rising COVID infections and low public support.
Tokyo 2020 sponsor Toyota will not run Olympics-related TV commercials amid lacklustre public support for the Olympics, with two-thirds of Japanese doubting organisers can keep the games safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a local media poll Aljazeera reported.
Chief Executive Officer of Toyota Motor Corp, Akio Toyoda, and other executives will not attend the opening ceremony either, Toyota said on Monday.
“It is true that Toyota will not be attending the opening ceremony, and the decision was made considering various factors including no spectators,” a spokesperson said.
“We will not be airing any commercials related to the Games in Japan,” she added.
Some 60 Japanese corporations who have paid more than $3bn for sponsorship rights to the postponed 2020 Olympics now face a dilemma over whether or not to tie their brands to an event that has so far failed to win strong public backing.
With just four days before the opening ceremony in Tokyo, 68 percent of respondents in an Asahi newspaper poll expressed doubt about the ability of Olympic organisers to control coronavirus infections, with 55 percent saying they were opposed to the Games going ahead.
“We will continue to cooperate and work closely with organisers such as Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo 2020 and the IOC to ensure we have a safe and secure environment for the Games,” government spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said at a regular briefing.
Any significant outbreak in the village could wreak havoc on competitions because those either infected or isolating would not be able to compete. Olympic officials and individual event organisers have contingency plans to deal with infections among athletes.
A Tokyo 2020 spokesperson said the village was a safe place to stay, adding that the infection rate among athletes and other Games-related people visiting Japan was nearly 0.1 percent.
On Sunday six British track and field athletes along with two staff members were forced to isolate after someone on their flight to Japan tested positive.
“Many athletes may have parties or ceremonies before they go to Tokyo where there may be cheering or greeting. So they may also have a risk to get infected in their own countries,” Koji Wada, a professor at Tokyo’s International University of Health and Welfare and an adviser on the government’s coronavirus response, told Reuters news agency.
The latest surge in cases in Tokyo comes after four earlier waves, the deadliest of which was in January. New COVID-19 cases in Tokyo reached 1,410 on Saturday, the highest figure since the start of the year, with new infections exceeding 1,000 for five straight days.
Most of those new cases are among younger people, as Japan has succeeded in getting most of its vulnerable elderly population vaccinated with at least one shot, although only 32 percent of the overall population has so far received one.
Source: Aljazeera
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