A poll found that 83% of Japanese people did not want the Olympic games to proceed there this summer, with 40% wanting them outright canceled and 43% calling for another postponement.
Those figures are up from 35 percent who backed cancellation in a survey by the paper a month ago, and 34 percent who wanted a further delay. Only 14 percent support holding the Games this summer as scheduled, down from 28 percent, according to the poll of 1,527 replies from 3,191 telephone calls. If the Games do go ahead, 59 percent of respondents said they want no spectators, with 33 percent backing lower fan numbers and three percent a regular capacity Games.
Foreign visitors are already banned from the games, but there will still be thousands of athletes, coaches, support staff and other officials—and plenty of local fans traveling to catch the action. Most Japanese—71.5%—are already displeased with the government's handling of the Covid pandemic there. More than 11,000 have died, in a country of 126m, since the outbreak began.
