This infectious disease expert thinks the Olympics aren't likely to happen in 2021 either

The Olympics aren't happening this year, and it looks like it's still not a sure thing that they'll happen next year, either.

After the CEO of the Tokyo organizing committee suggested it's possible the Tokyo Olympics won't move forward next summer, one infectious disease expert argued this week the event is indeed unlikely to happen in 2021.

"To be honest with you, I don't think the Olympics is likely to be held next year," Kentaro Iwata, Kobe University infectious disease professor, said, per The Associated Press.

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Iwata described himself as "very pessimistic" that the Olympics will happen next summer unless the structure is "totally different" like there being no audience or limited participation.

"You have to invite so many athletes from many, many places, which is not very compatible with this COVID-19 infection that is causing a pandemic," Iwata said. "Japan might be able to control this disease by next summer. And I wish we could. But I don't think that will happen everywhere on earth."

The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to begin on July 23, 2021, after being postponed from July 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. But Toshiro Muto, CEO of the Tokyo organizing committee, said earlier this month, "I don't think anyone would be able to say if it is going to be possible to get [the pandemic] under control by next July or not."

Another expert, professor of Global Health at the University of Edinburgh Devi Sridhar, argued that there's a "great chance" of the 2021 Olympics happening if there's a vaccine by this fall that can be quickly manufactured, per AP. But "if it looks in the next few months that a vaccine is proving difficult ... then I think it'll have to be delayed," he said.