Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. In 50 days Tokyo will host the delayed 2020 summer Olympics and Paralympics, but the host country has only fully vaccinated about 2% to 3% of its population. Another hurdle for the beleaguered games, 10,000 out of the 80,000 unpaid volunteers have recently dropped out ahead of the July 23rd opening. Now, despite all of this, the IOC, the International Olympic Committee is signaling that it is moving forward with games. They're signaling the path today by unveiling the costumes, music, and the podiums that will be used for the ceremonies.

It's not just Japan and COVID in the Olympics controversy news right now, the IOC is also facing pushback for hosting its Winter 2022 Games in Beijing. A growing number of human rights groups are calling for a boycott of those games because of China's persecution of Uyghur Muslims. Joining me now to talk about all of this all the way from Tokyo is Stephen Wade, sports writer for the Associated Press. Stephen, I think it's the middle of the night out there, isn't it, so thank you very much for doing this.

Stephen Wade: You're welcome. You're very welcome.

Brian: You reported on the 10,000 volunteers dropping out just this morning, I guess, afternoon. What are the former volunteers telling organizers?

Stephen Wade: They're afraid of COVID. They're not going to be vaccinated. None of the volunteers, 80,000, would be vaccinated unless they had contact with the athletes, very few will. The volunteers won't be vaccinated and they're getting cold feet, like many people here in Tokyo, about these games.

Brian: You write, "Unpaid volunteers are a key workforce in running the Olympics and save organizers millions of dollars in salaries." What work do these unpaid volunteers typically do? Why do they do it for free? Are there any perks, at least?

Stephen Wade: Well, in typical Olympics, they get a free uniform, they get fed on the days they work, and they get some transportation to the venue. They get no lodging. They do it because of the possibility of being close to people who are famous and powerful. One analyst told me last year, he thinks that the IOC could charge people to be volunteers and they, in fact, would do it because people get a chance to see behind the scenes in this mystical world of the Olympics, this mythical world of the Olympics. They have plenty-- They have no problem finding volunteers, but they're using unpaid labor and saving, perhaps, on these games maybe a hundred million dollars.

Brian: Listeners, if you have any connection to the 2021 Summer Olympics, I guess they call it the 2020 Summer Olympics, but they're taking place now in 2021, if you are an athlete, if any of the athletes, if anybody in Japan who's worried or excited about this circus coming to town, give us a call, tell us your story, help us report this story. Or anyone with a question for AP sports writer, Stephen Wade in Tokyo (646) 435-7280, (646) 435-7280, or you can tweet a question or a thought @BrianLehrer. Stephen, you write, "Only about 2% to 3% of Japan's general population has been fully vaccinated in a very slow rollout that's just now speeding up." What about the athletes?

Stephen Wade: Japanese athletes began being vaccinated this week. They are going to be vaccinated. We don't know the athletes around the world how many will be. The IOC is saying 80% of the athletes and the participants who are in the Olympic Village will be vaccinated, but we have no way of knowing that number. I'm not sure how the IOC really knows that number either, but that's the number they're putting out there.

Brian: There's no vaccination requirement? You can't go to a Knicks game right now, you can't go to the Knicks game at all because they got eliminated last night, but it was going to be, you couldn't go to a Knicks game if they made round two unless you were vaccinated as a fan. What about for your Olympic athletes?

Stephen Wade: No, no. The IOC has said from the start, "This is voluntary. We can't force anybody to be vaccinated." They've organized these entire games on the premise that there would be no vaccination available. Their strategy is test When people come in the country, test when they got off the plane, put them in a bubble, the bubble would we be safer if people are vaccinated, but we're not requiring it. That's been their spiel.

Although, behind the scenes, the IOC has been encouraging, very forcefully, people that get vaccinated and has been getting vaccinations donated from Pfizer, I believe. I think Sinovac in China has donated to some countries. They're trying to get athletes vaccinated without requiring them to be vaccinated.

Brian: Is it too off your sports beat to offer some analysis of why only 2% to 3% of Japan's general population has been fully vaccinated? In this country, we're getting close to President Biden's goal of 70% of the population having at least one shot by the 4th of July, and a typical American might think, "Well, Japan is another wealthy industrial country, you would think of vaccination rates would be high."

Stephen Wade: You would, wouldn't you? Here's what's happened, Japan has only 13,000 deaths, US had 600,000. There's a level of complacency, I think, among the Japanese. Although the virus is around, it was not as bad as Brazil, or South Africa, or the United States, or Britain. There's complacency. Also, Japan required that every vaccine, Pfizer, Moderna, whichever one had to go through the approval process in Japan. That slowed things down by two or three months. There's no vaccine being produced in Japan. That's slowed the whole thing down.

Then, despite the image of Japan being extremely efficient country, which it is on some levels, it's also very, very bureaucratic. Bureaucracy has slowed it down. It's only in the last couple of weeks that they began to get the ball rolling, and 2% or 3% fully vaccinated is a really low number, you can see that.

Brian: Will there be any spectators at the games and will they have to be vaccinated?

Stephen Wade: No. First of all, there's no spectators from abroad. That's been rolled out. We still don't know if there'll be any Japanese spectators. It's beginning to look more and more like these are going to be games with no spectators at all. That's because the International Olympic Committee derives a massive amount of income. 75% of its income comes from broadcast money.

What the IOC wants to do is put these games on television, stream it, whatever the modern device is now that will take it. That's the revenue source for the IOC. Getting the games on TV is much more important than fans. They don't care about the fans. I think there'll be happier if there are no fans. It'll make things much simpler and not complicate the problem, perhaps, of the virus being spread out, unbeknownst, by a fan who stumbles into the volleyball arena.

Brian: Listeners, questions, comments, thoughts, stories about the 2020 Olympics in the time of low COVID vaccination rates in Japan. (646) 435-7280. We'll get to the 2022 games and China and the human rights issues involved in that as we go with Stephen Wade in Tokyo, sports reporter for the Associated Press, (646) 435-7280. Here's Amy in Manhattan calling in, who says she's the mom of a person on the 2021 team. Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Thanks for being on the air these months, you've really kept us sane here at home. Yes, my daughter is on the 2020/2021 team. She was on the 2012 team as well, and obviously, it's a completely different experience. Your guests just explained part of my question, which we have not been able to get an answer, even close to the Olympics, is why the Japanese, knowing that they were going to be inundated by people, didn't ramp up their vaccination rate? I guess the explanation that he gave about the bureaucracy and not manufacturing is part of the answer, but it's very, very frustrating.

For us, obviously, we're not going, which is sad. The games are very much curtailed for the participants, who are going in late, they're coming out within 48 hours. Everybody is worried. The 80% figure from the IOC, as far as we can tell, is just a ballpark. Thomas Bach does not know that for a fact. The whole thing is rather a debacle. At this point, for the athletes, it's very, very hard to train. They're in a news bubble to try to drown out all of this since they have to behave as if they're going to be competing in 50 days. [unintelligible 00:09:33] a time.

Brian: Stephen, what would you say to or ask Amy as the mom of one of the athletes?

Stephen Wade: The athletes are on the wrong end of this deal. As she knows, probably, the athletes are also have to sign a waiver, which all Olympic athletes do, but this waiver includes COVID measures. If you come down here with COVID, the athletes will have to waive their right for any whatever legal action. There's also the problem with fairness. Of the athletes in the games, 80% will get in through qualifying events. That's what the IOC says. The other 20%, since qualifying events have not been able to be held, will get in through ranking system. Some sports have rankings; judo, wrestling, whatever.

You're going to wind up with athletes who didn't get a chance to qualify who are going to be supplanted by athletes on a ranking system that's, perhaps, a year or two old. That's going to be incredibly unfair. The athletes are on the brunt end of this. I hate to say this, to be honest about it, but the athletes are pawns in this thing. Again, the IOC is a sports business operated out of Switzerland. 75% of the income comes from putting it on television. They need the athletes on the stage. They need them in the venue for volleyball, judo, wrestling, to perform so that the television cameras can record it and the IOC can get its money from NBC, from NHK, from the broadcasters.

NBC Universal is the largest single income source for the IOC. They depend so much on television broadcast money. That's why the games are going ahead. Today a doctor who's on the panel for the government panel on Code said in the legislature and in a committee today, "These are very unnormal circumstances for having Olympics. This Olympics should not go on," and asked the prime minister to explain why. The prime minister said something like, "Well, it's for world peace. We're trying to show the world that we can beat this pandemic, blah, blah, blah."

The truthful answer is that the IOC needs the broadcast money and that Japan has spent between $15 billion and $30 billion organizing these games. Brian, as you mentioned, China has the Winter Olympics in six months. Japan does not want to fail putting these games on and then have China do it successfully in the Winter Games in six months after Tokyo closes. There's a gigantic geopolitical element here that's in play and face saving is gigantic. Face saving is gigantic.

Brian: Amy, do you want to shout out your daughter so our listeners can watch for her or do you want to protect her privacy?

Amy: Sure.

Brian: Go ahead.

Amy: No, it's fine. Her name is Nicole Ross. She's a foil fencer. You were talking about them being pawns. Obviously, fencing is a niche sport. Although, the US has really come on strong in the last 10 years and we have had great results and world champions and Olympic medals before this, but it is tough. It is tough to see the athletes really, really working so hard and obviously being pawns in it all.

Brian: Amy, good luck to you.

Amy: Anyway, we'll see what happens. Thanks.

Brian: We'll see. Good luck to you and your daughter. [unintelligible 00:12:46] in the east village, you're on WNYC. Hi, [unintelligible 00:12:49].

Speaker 4: Hi, Brian.

Brian: What would you like to add?

Speaker 4: I live in New York 10 years and I'm from Tokyo and I'm actually about to visit my family in July, but I feel very uncomfortable to visit there because Olympic is happening. Everything is open and so many people are out and people don't really care about people's health and lives.

Brian: You're concerned about the people in Japan suffering a COVID outbreak in the country because athletes are coming from so many other places with higher COVID rates. Is that it?

Speaker 4: Yes. I'm concerned about the athlete and the team are coming. Also, they're not shutting the city because they want to open all business for just celebrating Olympics.

Brian: To make money. It's a business opportunity with-

Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.

Brian: -the big event coming to town. From what you hear from your friends and family back in Tokyo, is there backlash to even having the games?

Speaker 4: People don't want Olympics to happen, but I think they're not really listening to people actually living there. They really want to push the Olympics. It's very [unintelligible 00:14:30] like end of July. I think it's getting closer and closer and people like, "Oh, no, I think it's going to happen," but there's nothing we can do and it's very frustrating.

Brian: [unintelligible 00:14:45], thank you very much. Stay safe on your trip. Is it very divisive from your reporting there, Stephen?

Stephen Wade: Absolutely. She's right. She's spot-on. 50% to 80% of Japanese, depending how the question is phrased, oppose having the Olympics. There was a petition drive online here a couple of weeks ago, 400,000 signatures in very few days. The opposition here is very strong, but as [unintelligible 00:15:13] probably knows, Japanese are not the sort of people to go out in the streets and protest. You don't see that sort of opposition, but the Asahi Shimbun, the second largest paper in Japan, five million copies [unintelligible 00:15:25] came out a couple of weeks ago saying that games should be canceled.

The British Medical Journal has said it should be called off. The New England Journal of Medicine has said it should be reconsidered. The called and they questioned the [unintelligible 00:15:40] Science in these playbooks in their strategy they're using to fight COVID. There is a tremendous amount of opposition here, but there's no fighting city hall.

Prime Minister Suga is bound and determined to have these games to save face for him. There are parliamentary elections here in the year, he could get blown away if these games were suddenly called off or they're a complete disaster. It's in his interest for them to come off well. I think he thinks his political fortunes would better if they do. If they don't come off or if they should be called off, which it seems impossible to think about being called off now--

I think Dick pound, the IOC members said it would take Armageddon in the day to call them off. Would they be called off, how embarrassing would that be for the prime minister after all this money, all this effort, all this energy not to be able to do it? Unthinkable, really.

Brian: If you can tell, how good is the quarantining system? Because we talked about a low vaccination rate, then there's testing. You reported that a member of Ghana's soccer team tested positive for COVID upon arrival in Tokyo and has been placed in quarantine. Jamaica's soccer players were not able to even go to Japan because of issues with testing. What are you seeing as all these people arrive? How good is the testing system and then the quarantining system, from what you could tell, for those who test positive?

Stephen Wade: I guess you can see it two ways, the system is working. They found the Ghanaian football player. They found the Jamaicans. They didn't get in the country. It works. The numbers are astounding. 15,000 athletes are coming in the Olympics and Paralympics. Tens of thousands, probably a hundred thousand people coming here, all being tested before they leave home. Two tests before you get on the plane from Madrid or London or wherever it is. Another test when you get on the ground. The athletes and their entourage tested almost every day in the athletes village, but no matter how much the testing, somebody has to slip through the cracks.

We know there are going to be positive tests, we know that the games are going to be disrupted continually, possibly by things like a positive test that turns out to be negative, an athlete who wanted to go into the wrestling final can't compete and then finds out the next day he or she wasn't positive but misses out on the game. We're going to have all those sorts of disruptions here. No matter how perfect the system is, there are going to be people going through the cracks.

I say this, there's no country in the world that would try this except Japan. I was in Brazil for four years for the 2016 games, impossible. There's no country in the democratic sphere, save for authoritarian states, that could pull this off. Japan will probably come close to doing as well as anybody could. Probably when it's all over, people will praise Japan. Japan will be a hero, a model, but people are going to go. There are going to be problems of things falling through the cracks. That's inevitable.

We know there's going to be problems and there could be spread of COVID. A doctor last week said he's fearful that these variants will get in here and we'll have a super spreading event or we'll have an event in which a new variant pops up and is creative. It all looks pretty bleak, honestly.

Brian: Yes, or they know by now how to sequester cases when they arise and there won't necessarily be a super spreader event. That's what we will see. At 11:02 in the morning in New York, two minutes after midnight in Tokyo, where Stephen Wade is joining us from, Associated Press sports writer. We have a few more minutes with him.

As I said in the intro to the segment, Stephen, even if things go smoothly in Tokyo this year, then there are the Beijing Winter Olympics, I guess, in January, and human rights groups are calling for countries to boycott those because of China's persecution of Uyghur Muslims. The US State Department has called it a genocide. Are any countries boycotting so far, including the US?

Stephen Wade: No, not so far that we know. I'll say this, the IOC has a problem with Tokyo, but Beijing is a much bigger mess for them. I think they're going to have a much more difficult time getting out of this one. The opposition of these games is strong. The activists are out there now trying to hit IOC sponsors, trying to put the pressure on. I have no idea if it will be successful, but these games are going to be very, very contentious.

As one activist told me last week, "Can we really have Olympics in a country where there's genocide going on behind the bleachers?" Really, really bad look for the IOC. Again, that problem is more grave for them than this one. The Tokyo Olympics close on August 8, I think. Beijing opens on February 4th. They run for two weeks. The only advantage the IOC has with the Winter Games is they're much smaller. We're talking about 3,000 athletes, I think, instead of 11,000.

The sports are much more isolated. The Chinese will have a better chance of controlling that season than they would the Summer Games. Although we saw on the 28th, 2008 Beijing Olympics, they controlled those perfectly well and got good press on the world stage.

Brian: I said, mistakenly, the Winter Games start in January, you corrected to February 4, I guess we could call that January 35th, but we can't really. Is there any precedent for countries or even individual athletes boycotting a set of games because of human rights violations by the host country?

Stephen Wade: I don't know, you're going to stop me on that one. I don't think so. We certainly had the boycotts in 1980 with the Moscow Olympics, we had the LA Olympics were boycotted. There may be one other one that was boycotted. I think this will be the first one since LA '84. Of course, as your last caller with an athlete in the family, the athletes are the ones who get battered with this. Again, the IOC has put these athletes in untenable position. What do you do? Do you go there and look the other way about the human rights violations and the genocide or do you stand up and speak out and then perhaps lose your sponsorship?

The woman who called with a daughter in fencing, [inaudible 00:22:05] they have any money to get along with, so she probably can't afford to lose the one sponsor, two sponsors that she might have. The IOC has put them in a very difficult position and they've gotten in a bad habit of going to authoritarian states. They went to China in 2008, flush with money. They went to Sochi, Russia in the Winter Games in 2014. They're back in Beijing in 2022, basically because nobody else would take them.

None of the European countries that are winter sports nuts like Sweden, Norway, Switzerland wanted the games. Many had a referenda and voted no. The IOC was left with choosing between, get this, Beijing, Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Beijing won by four votes, that's why the games are in Beijing. I think the Chinese were shocked when they got the games this time.

Brian: That's going to be a rising debate in the US, I guess, in the coming weeks and months. Pressure on the US Olympic Committee not to go, by human rights activists, and maybe pressure on the US government and President Biden to take a stand on this, right?

Stephen Wade: Yes, I think the USOC, they've already ruled out a boycott. I think last week they came out and said, "No boycott, that hurts the athletes." The State Department, Secretary Blinken, I think, agreed that there was genocide going on, but I don't think the State Department at all is decided about a boycott. I think they've spoken out against it, but all it would take is a couple of athletes, a couple of star athletes not to come, or a country like Sweden or Norway, one of those strong winter countries, Canada, to drop out. That would be a horrible signal for the Chinese and then you would see a domino effect. We'll see if that happens.

Brian: Last thing and we're going to rotate to yet another sport and yet another controversial location. As the AP sports writer, you're spending all your time covering the Olympics at the moment, but I'll tell our listeners, you spent four and a half years in Brazil, which will be hosting Copa América this year. For listeners who aren't familiar, Copa is the oldest running international soccer competition and the third most-watched in the world, from the stats I've seen.

It was supposed to be held in Colombia and Argentina this year, but both countries bowed out after protests in Colombia and then a surge in COVID cases in Argentina. Now Brazil has stepped into host. Talk about countries taking over that lean toward authoritarian, and if there's not that much COVID in Japan, boy, is there a lot of COVID in Brazil. What's going on there?

Stephen Wade: I lived four and a half years in Brazil. I love it, but it's a nutty place. I'll tell you what, this is insanity. Brazil has 450,000 people dead and Bolsonaro is going ahead with this. It's almost unbelievable. I saw the headlines the other day, and my colleague, Mauricio, in Rio was writing about it. I couldn't believe it. I said, "You got to be joking. You got to be joking Brazil will take this on," but they're going to.

In 2014 for the World Cup, they build, I think, 8 or 10 stadiums. Many of those stadiums have remained empty. I see today that they're scheduling games in some of these far out destinations, where the stadium, perhaps, has been empty for six years, in cities that didn't even have a football club. I see in Cuiabá in the west of Brazil, they have five or six games. I was out there in 2014, that stadium was built, there's no football club in the town, almost. The stadium probably has been totally unused. They found a useful art here eight years or seven years down the road, but it sounds crazy to hold the Copa América in Brazil. Absolutely insane.

Brian: We'll be watching Brazil this summer, we'll be watching Tokyo this summer, we'll be watching the run-up to Beijing for next winter. Listeners, now you know you can be reading Stephen Wade, sports writer for the Associated Press. Thank you so much for staying up late, Tokyo time, and doing this with us.

Stephen Wade: Brian, you're very welcome. Enjoyed it. Thank you.

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