Olympic organizers remain confident that, exactly six months from Saturday, thousands of athletes from around the world will parade through Japan's new national stadium for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games.
That optimism, however, is far from universal.
Over the past few weeks, cases of COVID-19 in Japan have begun to climb and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has declared a state of emergency in Tokyo. Opposition party leaders are lobbying Suga to pull the plug on the Olympics and focus on containing the virus. And polls indicate that the Japanese people are increasingly skeptical that the Games can – or should – go on as planned, beginning July 23.