Case Study: Tokyo 2020 Olympics in a Pandemic
One of the world’s largest sporting events had their official start this morning, July 23, 2021. After delaying the games for a year, the safety landscape of the event is dominated by pandemic-focused procedures, precautions, and anxiety. With over 11,000 athletes competing in 41 different sports, there will be significant challenges to maintaining safety for those involved, including staff and volunteers. Merging technology to track and assess, with documented protocols and itineraries, the Tokyo Olympic committee is pulling all the stops to ensure minimal spread of COVID-19 during the events, including most recently banning spectators, foreign and domestic from attending the events.
Overview of the Procedures Enforced at the Games
Like much of the world, the Tokyo Olympics will have similar physical controls to minimize any COVID spread. Controls such as mandatory mask wearing, physical distancing, avoid physical contact, and avoiding enclosed spaces and crowds.
For the Olympic participants, individuals will use dedicated “Games” vehicles to avoid public transit and they follow a 14 day Activity Plan that includes a list of permitted destinations. The Olympic committee has also implemented COVID-19 Liaison Officers (CLOs) who act as the point-of-contact for adhering to the Tokyo 2020 Playbook (a set of detailed documents on navigating the procedures of the games with a playbook built for different groups) as well as guidance related to COVID-19 matters and Playbook infringements.
These Playbooks were developed with the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, and the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, and outline the responsibilities for all participants, and rules to be followed, beginning with 14 days before travel and finishing with departures after the conclusion of the games.
With a total of 7 Playbooks developed to cover all participants (Athletes and Officials, Press, Broadcasts, Marketing Partners, International Federations, Workforce, and Olympic and Paralympic Family), a great deal of information and work has been put together to make the games as safe as possible.
What This Means for Future Large Events
With such a large even occurring in a small area, the documents and planning leading up to the event, as well as the lessons learned throughout the games will provide a lot of data and information that other organizations can use to develop and improve upon the safety measures for future international events.
There will always be risks with hosting international events, such as the Olympics, especially during a worldwide pandemic. While I may not fully agree with moving forward with the games this summer amid rising cases of COVID variants and vaccine coverage concerns, it appears that the Tokyo Olympic Committee and the IOC have developed a robust and comprehensive system to manage the safety of the games for the participants and for the hosting nation.
The information gathered after the games will provide a great deal of data that can be analyzed in the future to develop and improve upon the use of technology, communication, and procedures for both pandemic safety measures in large events, as well as providing a great case study in epidemic planning. I will be very interested to see how the lessons learned during the summer games will be integrated into the winter games in Beijing this upcoming February 2022 as well as the FIFA World Cup in Qatar 2022.
I support the outstanding athletes and participants in the games, as well as those who have elected to not attend, and look forward to seeing their hard work showcased on the world stage.
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