MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. Austria’s Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Culture and Sports Werner Kogler has called for a postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic,
"The closure of sports and training facilities in many (but not all) countries has already raised doubts about the equal opportunities for participants in the 2020 Summer Games," Reuters quoted him as saying on Monday."I am calling for a postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games."
Norway’s and Canada’s Olympic Committees said earlier they would not sent their athletes to Tokyo.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said on Sunday the final decision on possible postponement of the Olympic Games in Tokyo due to the COVID-19 pandemic would be taken within four weeks.
The Olympic Summer Games are scheduled to be held in Tokyo from July 24 to August 9.
A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported from more than 150 countries and territories, including Russia, which by now has 438 cases, with 17 patients having recovered. The World Health Organization says that the novel coronavirus cases across the globe have exceeded 320,000, with more than 14,000 deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially described the situation with the novel coronavirus as a pandemic.