MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) believes that its veteran member Richard Pound had the right to provide his own opinion about the future of the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan in view of the continuous global spread of the novel coronavirus, the IOC press service told TASS on Tuesday.

In an interview with USA Today daily on Monday, Pound stated that the future of the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer had been already decided: "On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided."

"It is the right of every IOC Member to interpret the decision of the IOC EB [Executive Board] which was announced yesterday," the statement from the IOC press service reads.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said addressing the national parliament early on Monday that it was impossible to organize the Olympic Games under the current circumstances adding that he hoped to discuss this issue as soon as possible with IOC President Thomas Bach. Yoshiro Mori, the head of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Local Organizing Committee, announced later in the day that the Games would go in line with the initial schedule.

IOC President Bach announced on Sunday that the world’s governing Olympic body was set to make a decision within four weeks on whether the 2020 Summer Games would be held in line with the initial timeframe.

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) was the first among national Olympic committees (NOCs) to declare on Monday a decision against attending the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The same decision was voiced later in the day by the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC).

COVID-19 Global Spread

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, an economic and industrial megalopolis with a population of 11 million.

The virus was identified on January 7 as 2019-nCoV. The World Health Organization declared in January that the new coronavirus outbreak was a public health emergency of international concern, characterizing it as an epidemic with multiple locations.

On February 11, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that the organization gave the novel coronavirus an official name of COVID-19. On March 11, the World Health Organization officially stated that the continuously spreading novel coronavirus was a global pandemic.

As of today, 196 countries and territories reported confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the latest reports, over 386,400 cases have been confirmed worldwide. The virus’ death toll has reached 16,747, yet more than 102,390 patients have recovered from the disease.