The Olympic Covid-19 Countermeasures Cost Is Estimated At US $ 960 Million

JAKARTA - The organizers of the Tokyo Olympics estimate the costs to be incurred for the response to COVID-19 in the multi-sport competition next year will be around 100 billion yen or 960 million US dollars.

Quoted Antara from Reuters, Monday, November 30, a spokesman for the organizers said the full report will be announced further after the meeting between the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Committee, the Tokyo metropolitan city government and the Japanese government on Wednesday.

In December 2019, long before the decision to postpone the Tokyo Olympics due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the committee still had the final budget of US $ 12.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the international Olympic committee (IOC) plans to provide an additional US $ 800 million as a consequence of the delay, but the organizing committee has not provided details.

The organizers are then expected to immediately announce the amount of budget needed before the end of this year.

Previously it was reported that the losses suffered due to the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics during the COVID-19 pandemic were predicted to reach 200 billion yen (around Rp.26.73 trillion), the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese Government said as quoted by the Japanese newspaper, Yomiuri, Sunday.

The International Olympic Committee and the Japanese Government have been forced to postpone the holding of the world's biggest sporting event for up to a year due to COVID-19. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics was supposed to be held in July, but due to the pandemic, the event was scheduled to take place on March 24, 2021.

The estimated cost of holding the Olympics before being postponed due to COVID-19 reached 1.35 trillion yen (around Rp.182.9 trillion), according to Yomiuri news.

A spokesman for the Olympic organizers, contacted via text message, said the committee was still calculating the additional costs incurred as a result of the delay.

Additional costs resulting from delays include staff salaries as well as the budget for introducing a new system for ticket refunds. However, the additional costs do not cover the budget to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Yomiuri explained.