COVID-19 Risk Assessment for the Tokyo Olympic Games

Abstract

Introduction: As of June 7, 2021, the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread to more than 200 countries. The global number of reported cases is more than 172.9 million, with more than 3.7 million deaths, and the number of infected individuals is still growing rapidly. Consequently, events and activities around the world were canceled or postponed, and the preparation for sporting events were greatly challenged. Under such circumstances, about 11,000 athletes from ~206 countries are arriving in Tokyo for the 32nd Summer Olympic Games. Therefore, it is urgently necessary to assess the occurrence and spread risk of COVID-19 for the Games.Objectives: To explore effective prevention and control measures for COVID-19 in large international events through simulations of different interventions according to risk assessment.Methods: We used a random model to calculate the number of initial infected patients and used Poisson distribution to determine the number of initial infected patients based on the number of countries involved. Furthermore, to simulate the COVID-19 transmission, the susceptible-exposed-symptomatic-asymptomatic-recovered-hospitalized (SEIARH) model was established based on the susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) mathematical model of epidemic diseases. According to risk assessment indicators produced by different scenarios of the simulated interventions, the risk of COVID-19 transmission in Tokyo Olympic Games was assessed.Results: The current COVID-19 prevention measures proposed by the Japan Olympic Committee need to be enhanced. And large-scale vaccination will effectively control the spread of COVID-19. When the protective efficacy of vaccines is 78.1% or 89.8%, and if the vaccination rate of athletes reaches 80%, an epidemic prevention barrier can be established.