Tokyo Olympics loom, with only 2% of Japanese fully vaxxed

TOKYO – Come July, Takahiro Katsumi's home city of Saitama is on deck to host some of the Summer Olympics' most prominent events, including basketball, soccer and golf.

It's an alarming prospect for Katsumi, a 48-year-old translator whose wife is battling lung cancer. He worries that Japan's health care system, already strained from high infection and death rates in a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, would be overwhelmed if Olympic visitors trigger another surge — leaving his wife even more vulnerable.

To Katsumi, forging ahead with the Tokyo Olympics is an unreasonable risk that will leave the Japanese public shouldering the regret and consequences after the athletes and the world's spotlight have come and gone.

"Why are we risking our loved ones for this?" he asked. "Why did we not say no?"

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