Cheering Might Be Banned at the Tokyo Olympics

This year has been a whirlwind, and it's easy to forget sometimes that the Olympics in Tokyo were a casualty of the pandemic. Nonetheless, the games are set to happen next summer. While there's been some promising news on the vaccine, we may not be totally out of the woods yet as far as COVID-19 is concerned, and one of the precautions being tossed around for the games is that spectators might not be allowed to cheer.

"There's a possibility that we might ask the (Olympic) spectators to refrain from shouting or talking in a loud voice," Tokyo 2020 chief executive Muto said, via AFP. "When we think of the impact, we believe it is an item for consideration, to reduce the risk of airborne droplets."

As you've surely noticed if you clicked into this article, a limited capacity of fans have been able to attend football games in America this fall and cheering has not been prohibited at any of them.

The silver lining for Olympics spectators is that, in the same interview, Muto said that a 14-day quarantine for visiting fans is "unrealistic." He said that "pre-visit tests and health monitoring, careful screening at the border, post-entry checks on activities and health, (and) taking swift measures if symptoms appear" are alternatives being considered.

Would you be up for going to the Olympics in Tokyo next summer?