IOC Chief Thomas Bach rejected growing calls to cancel the global sporting showpiece, already delayed once due to the pandemic.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) reassured an anxious Japan, on Wednesday, that the Tokyo Olympics would be safe for athletes as well as the host community, amid mounting opposition to the Games and fears it will fuel a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Speaking via videoconference that was broadcast alongside senior Japanese officials in Tokyo, IOC chief Thomas Bach said he believed more than 80% of residents of the Olympic Village would be vaccinated or booked for vaccination ahead of the Games set to start on July 23.
He rejected growing calls to cancel the global sporting showpiece, already delayed once due to the pandemic, saying that other sporting events had proved the Olympics could go ahead with strong COVID precautions.
Bach's comments came as Japan kept up its battle on the fourth wave of infections, although a slow vaccination campaign has undermined already shaky public confidence that the Games should proceed.
"Together with our Japanese partners and friends, I can only re-emphasise this full commitment of the IOC to organise safe Olympic and Paralympic games for everybody," Bach said.
Less than 30% of medics in Japan's major cities have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, with just 65 days left to the start of the Olympics, the Nikkei newspaper said.
Cabinet figures showed this week that three months into Japan`s vaccination push, less than 40% of its medical workers were fully inoculated.
The problem is especially pronounced in the capital, Tokyo, which plays host to the Games, and other large population centres, where the rate of fully vaccinated medical workers was less than 30%, the Nikkei added.
"It's impossible to think about dispatching them (to the Olympics) when they haven`t even received their own two shots," Kenyu Sumie, the chairman of a group representing more than 100,000 doctors and dentists in Japan, told Reuters on Wednesday. "There is no way that the Olympics can be safely held at this point."
Bach said the IOC would do its part to keep the Japanese public safe, by having additional medical personnel as part of the NOC delegations to support the medical operations and the strict implementation of the COVID 19 countermeasures.
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 "Amid cancellation demand, IOC chief Thomas Bach reassures anxious Japan of safe Tokyo Olympics")
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