COVID-19 and heat illness in Tokyo, Japan: implications for the summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2021

Shimizu, Kazuki, Gilmour, Stuart, Mase, Hiromi, Le, Phuong Mai, Teshima, Ayaka, Sakamoto, Haruka and Nomura, Shuhei (2021) COVID-19 and heat illness in Tokyo, Japan: implications for the summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2021. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18 (7). ISSN 1661-7827

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Abstract

The 2020 summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo were postponed to July– September 2021 due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. While COVID-19 has emerged as a monumental health threat for mass gathering events, heat illness must be acknowl-edged as a potentially large health threat for maintaining health services. We examined the number of COVID-19 admissions and the Tokyo rule for emergency medical care, in Tokyo, from March to September 2020, and investigated the weekly number of emergency transportations due to heat illness and weekly averages of the daily maximum Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) in Tokyo in the summer (2016–2020). The peak of emergency transportations due to heat illness overlapped the resurgence of COVID-19 in 2020, and an increase of heat illness patients and WBGT has been observed. Respect for robust science is critical for the decision-making process of mass gathering events during the pandemic, and science-based countermeasures and implementations for COVID-19 will be warranted. Without urgent reconsiderations and sufficient countermeasures, the double burden of COVID-19 and heat-related illnesses in Tokyo will overwhelm the healthcare provision system, and maintaining essential health services will be challenging during the 2021 summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Authors
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	15 Apr 2021 10:33
Last Modified:	17 Apr 2024 05:39
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/109874

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