Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee President Seiko Hashimoto, left, and Athletes' Committee of Tokyo 2020 Chairperson Naoko Takahashi attend Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) and the Japanese Paralympic Committee (JPC) three-party joint athletes' committee meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday. Photo: AP/Eugene Hoshiko
tokyo 2020 olympics

Tokyo Olympic athletes to undergo daily saliva testing

23 Comments

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23 Comments
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is that the super-safe measures?

i was expecting cameras, GPS and desinfection staff everywhere.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Periodic examinations of international athletes will generally be conducted at a sample collection center located within the athletes' village.

Won’t this give Japanese athletes a tremendous home-field advantage? They will be able to stay outside the athletes’ village and thus avoid the daily risk of being removed from competition.

12 ( +14 / -2 )

What a huge headache this has become for Japan.

Hey J-Gov, wake up and realize that support for these Olympics roughly equals support for your current administration.

Cancel the Games and get on with more pressing matters (procuring vaccines and administering vaccinationsand) and quit wasting resources on something hardly anybody cares about.

19 ( +19 / -0 )

Saliva testing is not near as efficient as the classic nose swab.

But I guess less effective testing is kind of handy, considering the circumstances we are dealing with, ne?

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Japan is fully concentrating on the Olympics and is losing valuable time against this new variant. Just like last year, they hemmed and hawed only to implement full emergency measures the day after it was announced that the Olympics would be postponed. It was a complete 180 degree turn that was so obviously shameful. Same old script, only this time more deadly because of the higher infection rate.

18 ( +19 / -1 )

False positives, testers getting infected (infecting others), shunning of the infected, it's a total nightmare.

12 ( +14 / -2 )

ugh, what next, anal swabbing?

11 ( +13 / -2 )

This Olympic, the Athletes will have to spend more time on testing than playing. Queuing up for saliva testing will also decrease the stamina because of anxiety and fear. I think Japan will be No. 1 to take most Gold medals this Olympic.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

The Japanese Government needs to undergo mental testing.

"Tokyo Olympic athletes to undergo daily saliva testing"

8 ( +12 / -4 )

The organizers are still considering whether to use antigen or polymerase chain reaction tests to analyze the samples.

What they are considering is which one is better, a test that comes up with false negatives a lot of times or a test that will get the results after 3 days. Either way this means people that are infectious will be left undetected for days able to spread the virus around.

12 ( +14 / -2 )

Good. No downside. Olympics going ahead whether you lot like it or not.

-12 ( +2 / -14 )

Olympics seems very impossible during pandemic. govt should decide cancellation right now. If announcement is done in June/July, it going to be a big shame for Japan.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Hang on, wasn't Japan boasting that the best testing philosophy was 'test only those with severe symptoms that last for 4 days'? Why preemptively test athletes?

Test your backyard first. Sheer utter incompetence.

11 ( +14 / -3 )

Downvote me all you want - but the Olympics will take place. Its past the point of no return to cancel now.

-1 ( +7 / -8 )

Tatemae on full display. They really think they are dealing with fools. What a shame that there are millions that believe the charade, the deceit. Since this pandemic started never has there been a call encouraging citizens to test so as to mitigate the spread of the virus something that even some 3rd world countries with budgets not more than that of tottori.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Olympics seems very impossible during pandemic. govt should decide cancellation right now. If announcement is done in June/July, it going to be a big shame for Japan.

Either way, the damage is done. I don't mind going to the lady on the right for a saliva test.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

The reported rate of false negatives is 20%. However, the range of false negatives is from 0% to 30%,

From Harvard University.

so just one person with false results can infect Japan, a sealed off island, similar to a cruise liner, with a new more dangerous strain of This virus?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

It’s not about more testing or vaccinations, it’s just only about the additional virus load imported from the whole world , here distributed and afterwards exported and again distributed into the whole world.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

So the medical staff that we are chronically short of will be diverted to this superspreader circus?

And will they similarly test all Japanese competitors?

And I hope they will test the estimated 60000 support staff also coming in, plus all the 125000 odd volunteers, if they turn up, and any else who comes into contact with any of these groups. Right. Thought not.

Sounds super safe to me. Absolutely no negative impact on any of us locals.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

What about the Japanese citizens, outside olympic athletes ?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

testing will be done every day whenever possible

I think many of you missed this sentence part. What it means is that they won't do much testing at all.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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