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  • I'm here at the Olympic Village in Tokyo.

  • And this is where around 18,000 athletes and officials will be staying during the games.

  • But the concern is that there could be a super spreader event at the Olympics.

  • It's raised a huge logistical challenge for the organizers.

  • You can't really create a kind of bubble situation for the Olympics.

  • So what they're doing is, they're creating controlled zones where they don't want people to leave.

  • [The Olympic Village is part of an archipelago of more than 40 controlled zones across Japan.]

  • [For around 60,000 foreign visitors including athletes, staff and media.]

  • Controlling people and making sure that they follow various rules will be a huge challenge.

  • So we are going to see how the organizers plan to make sure the world's biggest sporting event during the pandemic doesn't become a COVID hotspot.

  • So this is where the athletes are gonna be eating.

  • Of course, the dining area is one of the places at the Olympics where people like to socialize normally.

  • But that's one thing that the organizers want to avoid is a potential hotspot for virus transmission.

  • So most of the athletes will be eating by themselves.

  • This is the fitness center, and there are special precautions here as well, of course.

  • The organizers here say that they will be asking athletes to wear masks.

  • There's quite aggressive air circulation as well, but the machines are very close together, so this is a place where they are saying that if, uh, athletes come, and it's very busy, they will be turning them away at the door.

  • These are the condominiums that the athletes are gonna be staying in here in the village.

  • We can get up to eight athletes in one apartment.

  • [Athletes are encouraged to wear masks and use hand sanitizer while in their apartments.]

  • [Moving between zones.]

  • This is an event that's spread all over the country.

  • It's all around the Greater Tokyo region.

  • It's even 500 miles away in Hokkaido in the north, where the marathon is going to be held.

  • So the goal is to create this kind of archipelago of controlled zones across Japan.

  • When people travel between the village, say, and the Olympic stadium or other venues, there'll be dedicated bus and taxi links.

  • There will be punishments that will be imposed on people that go into the city.

  • The organizers even said that they want people to have the GPS tracking function turned on the smartphone when they come in.

  • [But there are some exceptions to these controlled zones.]

  • [Up to 10,000 Japanese spectators will be allowed each event.]

  • [Some of 70,000 Olympic volunteers, as well as Japanese media, will be allowed to move in and out of these zones.]

  • [Many of them will be vaccinated.]

  • The organizers have come up with some very strict rules about what people can and cannot do.

  • In general, in Japan, people do follow the rules.

  • But there's some concern here in Japan that people coming from overseas will be a bit more cavalier.

  • So you have quite a large movement of people around.

  • And that's a challenge to make sure that those people don't spread the virus amongst each other, and that we don't have a sharp increase which could put the Olympics really into crisis.

I'm here at the Olympic Village in Tokyo.

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