Tokyo 2020 Reporters Say They’ve Been Forced Into Hotel Isolation Without Food

For sports reporters, being sent to cover the Olympic Games is the kind of dream assignment that makes them choose their careers in the first place. But the trip to Tokyo instantly descended into boring chaos for a group of journalists forced into isolation days before the Games begin.

Multiple reporters have complained that they’re being made to isolate after being exposed to the coronavirus on their voyage to Japan. They say that they’ve been ordered to undergo 14 days of self-isolation in their hotel rooms, so will miss the majority of the Games and cover them from the same livestreams that they could have just watched at home.

To add salt into the wound, some of them say that they were exposed on the same flights that were carrying athletes to Tokyo—but those athletes have been told that there’s no need for them to isolate. The reporters say they are fully vaccinated and have returned multiple negative tests, but will spend the next 14 days locked up in their little rooms regardless.