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TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s prime minister thanked folks for serving to the nation safely maintain the Olympics regardless of the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.
He famous the Video games had been delayed by a yr and held beneath tight restrictions, however “I imagine we had been in a position to fulfill our duty because the host nation,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga mentioned, thanking the folks for his or her understanding and cooperation.
The 17-day Summer season Olympics had been performed largely with out spectators. Athletes stayed in an isolation bubble, rapidly donned masks off their subject of play and needed to depart Japan quickly after their competitions ended.
However the Video games had been a testomony to perseverance, and as Suga famous in praising Japanese athletes for the nation’s document 58 medals, “Some gained medals and others didn’t, however all their performances had been shifting.”
Suga spoke in regards to the Olympics at a ceremony in Nagasaki on Monday that marked the 76th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the Japanese metropolis.
Suga has been criticized as forcing the Video games on a Japanese public that did not need them to be held in the course of the pandemic.
Japan has counted 1 million infections and greater than 15,700 deaths from COVID-19, faring higher than many nations, however the delta variant is inflicting many current circumstances and accelerating the unfold of the virus.
Tokyo’s new each day circumstances have greater than doubled in the course of the Olympics, with 2,884 recorded Monday for a prefectural complete of 252,169 circumstances. With Tokyo hospitals filling up with severe circumstances, practically 18,000 folks with gentle circumstances are isolating at dwelling.
Surveys of public opinion present help for Suga’s authorities is steadily declining, a trajectory the governing get together hopes the top of the Olympics will reverse earlier than elections which might be anticipated within the fall.
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Comply with Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi
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