The coronavirus outbreak has brought up some questions as to whether the 2020 Olympics will still be held as planned. Toyko Olympic organizers reiterated Friday at a press conference that there is no "Plan B" for the Games, which are set to get underway on July 26, according to The Associated Press.
"Certainly the advice we've received externally from the WHO (World Health Organization) is that there's no case for any contingency plans or cancelling the games or moving the games," IOC inspection team head John Coates said during a news conference on Friday. "...We continue also to monitor, particularly the Chinese that will be coming here. You'll find that the Chinese teams are mostly out of China. That's the athletes and officials."
Tokyo organizing committee President Yoshiro Mori added that he didn't anticipate any "organizational changes" in reference to how the 2020 Games will be run.
"No, at this stage, no. We are not thinking of any such possibility," Mori said.
The coronavirus has caused at least 1,357 deaths globally and infected over 60,000 people, CBS News reports.
Several qualifying events have been postponed as a result of the coronavirus.
Last month, the World Athletics governing body announced that the World Athletics Indoor Championships were being moved to 2021. The Indoor Championships were originally scheduled to take place in Nanjing in mid-March.
In addition, the first FIS Alpine Ski World Cup races were canceled due to the coronavirus. The races were originally scheduled for Feb. 15 and 16. The men's downhill and super-G races were scheduled to take place during the two-day period.
Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that can cause illnesses as minor as a cold, or as serious as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), according to the World Health Organization. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus can cause symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath. But while some patients only show mild symptoms and recover, others have developed life-threatening complications, such as pneumonia, according to CBS News.
