Author: Corey Wallace, Kanagawa University

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics have cast a shadow over Japan’s COVID-19 response. Critics — including a former Japanese prime minister — questioned whether the government’s lacklustre early response to the outbreak and its ‘risky’ cluster-based strategy were a product of political considerations concerning the Games. A former health minister even asked whether under testing and ageing Japan’s more than 90,000 annual pneumonia deaths conveniently obscured the true impact of COVID-19.