After being postponed by a year due to the COVID pandemic, the Olympics opening ceremony finally took place on Friday despite strong opposition to the games from the Japanese public who fear the games could become a COVID super spreader event.

In an interview for "LA Times Today," reporter David Wharton joined host Lisa McRee from Tokyo.

Days before the opening ceremony, 71 people associated with the games had been infected with COVID-19, which has many wondering why the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not require attendees to be vaccinated.

"When they originally postponed the games a year ago, they started looking at this, and they didn't know what kind of situation they'd be facing globally, how much vaccine, if any, would be available," Wharton said. "So they decided at that point to base all their plans on no vaccine at all. So if there wasn't a vaccine, they could move forward, and they've never changed that. They just decided they would put in place restrictions on movement and contact and use testing and tracing and not even think about vaccines. And that is because they were not sure who among this gigantic group of athletes and coaches and officials and media will be vaccinated. So they did not even think about it."

Even though the IOC did not make vaccinations mandatory, Wharton said specific protocols need to be followed if someone tests positive for COVID-19.

"What happens is you take these saliva tests, and if that comes up positive, they immediately retest it with a more sensitive test. And at that point, they'll set you aside, keep you away from everyone. If that second test comes up positive, then you go to the PCR nasal swab, which Olympic officials call the gold standard of testing. If that comes up positive, then you're pulled completely out of the system, that you're turned over to the Japanese government. And they have set up hotels where they can keep people apart who have tested positive and make sure they don't come in contact with anyone."

Some competitors did not even make it to Tokyo. Seventeen-year-old American tennis player Coco Gauff is one of the many who tested positive even before leaving their countries.

"Coco would have been a very exciting new face here at the Olympics, but she tested positive," said Wharton. "Everyone in the Olympic community had to test twice before leaving home. She had a positive before even taking off. So she never got out of the United States, and she won't be able to compete."

Wharton added that the IOC and organizers have imposed many rules and limits of capacities to try and avoid a super spreader event.

"I think we all know there are no fans at all. First, they banned foreign spectators. Now, no Japanese can go to the events, and that's a big disappointment, I think, for the Japanese people. Then, everyone in the Olympic community is in what they call a bubble. So there's they're trying to limit any interaction between people who've come in from other countries. But the problem is there are hotels and things where there are workers who then turn around and go home at night. So there is a chance the infection to go around, you know, goes from the Olympic community to the population. But they've got all these rules where people can't go to restaurants. There's no sightseeing. You have to stay inside the Olympic bubble and try to limit any contact with people from the outside." 

Even though the atmosphere will be different from the regular Olympics, organizers will try their best to help athletes feel less alone.

"They're trying to make something happen inside those empty venues," Wharton said. "So one of the interesting things they've done is they went back over broadcasts from previous Olympics. For example, they took a volleyball match, and they extracted the sound and the crowd noises from a volleyball match. And they're going to play those at a lower level inside the arena for a volleyball match here. So they'll kind of share natural-type sounds. They're trying to get away from that sound of echoing feet on the floor or the ball being hit, going across empty stands. They're putting in screens that we saw with NBA basketball games to see fans, individual fans like a checkerboard. You can see them watching in real-time. And then when the athletes come off the field of play in as many cases as possible, not all the time, but they're trying to have at least for the medal winners, video monitors where they can interact with their families back home, celebrate by video screen. And it's just a few little things they're trying to do to create that excitement for the athletes."

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