TOKYO — When anyone traveling to Japan for the Olympics touches down in Tokyo, they are immediately separated from everyone else on their plane and …
TOKYO — When anyone traveling to Japan for the Olympics touches down in Tokyo, they are immediately separated from everyone else on their plane and whisked away to complete hours of COVID-19 testing and other entry procedures. Then, at least for journalists, three days of strict quarantine begins. The hotel that NPR journalists are staying in has barely enough floor space to open a suitcase. These are just a few of the safety measures journalists arriving for the games must go through in order to maintain separation from the Japanese population, as coronavirus cases rise and Tokyo is under a state of emergency. The strict protocols, detailed in a playbook that’s 68 pages long, are understandable at a time when Japan has only been able to vaccinate a small fraction of its citizens. About 20 percent are fully vaccinated. Getting into Japan involves a vast array of strict safety requirements that start days before takeoff. Journalists were supposed to be checking their own temperatures and uploading them to a special app – which did not work at all for some of our group of five, and only worked the day we left for others.
