The question of vaccination for Irish athletes travelling to the Olympic and Paralympic Games has been raised again with the IOC accepting an offer from the Chinese Olympic Committee to provide vaccines for all competitors at Tokyo and Beijing’s Winter Olympics next year.
The IOC will pay for the vaccines and they will be made available to countries that want to take them up.
25 countries are using one of the two Chinese vaccinations though they have not yet been approved by European authorities.
Yesterday’s announcement caught many by surprise. Japanese authorities said they would not accept the offer as the vaccines from China have yet to be approved there. They also reiterated that vaccination would not be a requirement for athletes.
Ireland has said it does not want to jump athletes ahead of the planned national rollout, a sense shared with other countries including the UK and Germany.
If we have learned one thing from the last twelve months though it is that change happens quickly and if this offer is taken up by a majority of countries, it may become part of a negotiation with the Japanese hosts that athletes are vaccinated. This is not the position at the moment but neither has there been an option to go outside of different national guidelines.
The IOC will pay for the vaccines and work with different national committees to get their delivery in place.
They have also offered to pay for two additional doses for every one given to an athlete which could cover the support team travelling with the athletes.
It could be that availability across the board will become better in the next two months, with additional vaccines like Johnson and Johnson’s becoming available.
Then again it might not, and we need to be mindful of the fact that this may not be a decision that is left to individual choice, especially if the vast majority of athletes have been vaccinated and the local authorities remain nervous about overseas visitors.
One to watch out for.
Sport for Business Partners
