Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Monday that he is determined to host the Tokyo Olympic Games although the Covid-19 pandemic situation is worsening in his country.
Suga told a press conference that he will prepare for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games with "determination" and take all possible measures against the infection and deliver "hope and courage" to the whole world, reports Xinhua news agency.
He also said that his government would consider declaring a state of emergency for Tokyo metropolitan and surrounding areas, which are suffering the most in the past few weeks.
The Tokyo Olympics, which were slated to be held in July-August in 2020, had to be postponed to summer of 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic which has claimed over 18 lakh lives across the world thus far.
Earlier, organisers of the delayed Tokyo Olympics said they will require COVID-19 tests for non-Japanese athletes and other participants upon arrival in Japan.
Japanese Olympic athletes and other participants living in Japan will be subject to the same measures, according to the draft measures still under discussion. Tokyo 2020 organisers were forced to delay the games due to the pandemic.
According to Tokyo Games organisers, the estimated the cost of COVID-19 countermeasures for next year's rearranged Olympics will run to around 100 billion yen ($960 million).
Japanese media had reported that the total costs of delaying the Games for a year would run to 200 billion yen.
The last official budget given by the organising committee in December 2019, months before the Games were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was $12.6 billion.
