An organization representing approximately 6,000 Japanese doctors took a stand against the Tokyo Olympics, arguing that the Games should be outright canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The message comes from the Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association in an open letter to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga that was shared on Monday and written on May 14.
The big argument from the group is that the city's hospitals are already so full in response to a surge of coronavirus infections that to allow the Olympics to happen would make the situation much more dire than it already is.
"We strongly request that the authorities convince the IOC (International Olympic Committee) that holding the Olympics is difficult and obtain its decision to cancel the Games," the letter reads, according to Reuters.
This letter was written about a week after Japan announced a state of emergency in Tokyo as a result of the country's rising COVID-19 cases, something that has happened multiple times before. As it currently stand, the country's rollout plan for the vaccine is also nowhere near where it needs to be given what how much of the country was open prior to this recent federal initiative.
According to Reuters, just 3.5% of the 126 million people living in Japan as vaccinated.
The Games have already been postponed once as a result of the pandemic - from 2020 to 2021 -- and doing so again would likely result in an all-out cancellation of the event. A poll released in April revealed that 72 percent of Japanese people want the games canceled or postponed as a result of a sluggish government response to coronavirus.
The Summer Olympics are scheduled to begin in Tokyo on July 23.
