(Geneva) China strengthened its relationship with the International Olympic Committee on Thursday by offering to defray the costs associated with immunizing athletes, as the planet rallies to demand that the 2022 Winter Olympics be moved from Beijing.
Posted on March 11, 2021 at 4:35 p.m.
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The IOC has developed a partnership with the Chinese Olympic Committee to purchase and provide vaccines to those who will participate in the Olympic Games in Tokyo and Beijing.
“We are grateful for their offer, which is perfectly in line with the spirit of Olympic solidarity,” said IOC President Thomas Bach during a videoconference in which sports leaders and the organizing committees of the next Olympic Games also participated.
Restoring the image of China
Bach mentioned that the IOC will “pay the extra doses” for Olympic and Paralympic athletes. The Tokyo Olympics should get underway on July 23, and those in Beijing in February 2022.
The agreement will restore the image of China, whose plan to present the Olympics has been severely criticized lately.
Activists have already renamed the project “the Genocide Games” after the Chinese government imprisons members of the Uyghur community in labor camps. Pro-democracy activists also associate the Olympics with protests in Hong Kong and Tibet.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has previously said that genocide is taking place against ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang province.
The IOC and Bach have avoided human rights issues in China and reiterated that the organization can only directly influence projects associated with the holding of the Olympic Games.
Very slow vaccination in Japan
On the other hand, China’s proposal to distribute the vaccine and offer it to Tokyo Games participants to ensure their health has also drawn attention to the slowness of the vaccination process in the perennial Asian rival, the Japan. Mass vaccination began in February in Japan, and the emphasis was on workers in the health network.
“At the moment, the vaccine is offered to health workers, and by April the vaccination of seniors will begin,” said the executive director of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee Toshiro Muto through an interpreter.
Bach said the deal with China would fulfill the promise to the organizing committee and athletes to deliver a safe Olympics in Tokyo.
China, where the coronavirus pandemic began in 2019, has relied on “vaccine diplomacy”, using the doses developed by the companies Sinovac and Sinopharm.
Analysis by The Associated Press earlier this month showed that China has already pledged around half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 countries.
Canada relies on Health Canada
For its part, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) has said it “strongly prefers” that its athletes competing in the Tokyo Games this summer receive a COVID-19 vaccine approved by Health Canada.
David Shoemaker, the COC’s chief executive, spoke in a statement shortly after the announcement of the agreement between the IOC and China over vaccine doses.
Health Canada has yet to approve any COVID-19 vaccine from China.
Shoemaker said the COC “will continue to follow Health Canada guidelines and recommendations from the Public Health Directorate and Return to Sport Working Group on all matters relating to Team health and safety. Canada ”.
Canadian athletes are not required to receive the vaccine to participate in the Tokyo Games.
Public health officials in Canada said Wednesday the country should have received at least one dose for every Canadian by the end of June. The Tokyo Olympics are due to start about a month later.
With The Canadian Press
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