It’s been a back-and-forth thing whether or not to allow fans at the Olympics. Seiko Hashimoto, the president of the Tokyo organizing committee, says that banning all fans is still an option on the table. Here are the highlights: 

• If they do ban all fans, it would be a complete 180 from the decision made 10 days to allow 10,000 local fans to attend. Of course, they banned international fans months ago.
• What’s causing the new change in heart is due to the rising infections and the delta variant taking over as the dominant strain. 
• There are fears that if fans attend along with the 15,400 people involved in the Olympics, this could turn into a super-spreader event. 
• Hashimoto said things are still unclear, but they’ve planned an alternative, no fan event just in case.
• There could be a decision made next week on fans from a meeting between the International Olympic Committee, International Paralympic Committee, the Japanese government, and other groups. 
• Dr. Shigeru Omi, the top Covid-19 adviser, said no fans would be the safest choice. Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, also agreed. Her preference would be that as well and she said they’ll continue to monitor the infection rate to come to a more concrete decision about not having any spectators.
• Regardless of this situation, they’re still continuing on with the games. If they were to cancel, the IOC could lose up to $4 billion.