Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is proposing a one-year postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics amid the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
After reaching an agreement with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach on Tuesday, the leader noted that a delay in the games is inevitable if they cannot safely proceed during the global coronavirus pandemic.
“I proposed to Mr. Bach that we postpone the Games for a year. He 100% agrees with me,” Abe said in a statement.
The move will be made official during an IOC executive board meeting next week. The decision to move the event to 2021 came after countries such as Canada and Australia pulled out of the Olympics earlier this week. It also followed a statement from IOC member Dick Pound, who indicated that a “postponement has been decided” but that the group still needed to nail down “parameters.”
The Olympics have never been postponed before. However, they were canceled in 1916, 1940, and 1944 during World War I and World War II.
As of Tuesday morning, nearly 400,000 people around the world had been infected with the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 17,000 people globally have died from the illness, while over 100,000 others have recovered. However, Japan accounts for just over 1,000 COVID-19 cases. The nation has seen 42 deaths from the disease and nearly 300 recoveries.
