IOC Begins 'Scenario Planning' if Olympics are Delayed; European Countries Seeing Large Spikes in Cases & Deaths.
HOLMES: Welcome back, everyone. The International Olympic Committee is reconsidering rescheduling the 2020 Tokyo Games. The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has had a staunch position in the past, and that is that the Olympics should happen on schedule. Now, he has now addressed the possibility that the games may be postponed because of the virus. For more, I'm joined by CNN's Will Ripley in Tokyo. Several countries now a little reticent about going ahead. Is it starting to feel a little inevitable it's going to be postponed?</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is, Michael. It does seem only a matter of time before Japanese Olympic organizers and the IOC announce that Tokyo 2020 will be postponed. A lot of people are saying it should be postponed for a year. But obviously, from the Olympics perspective, it's such a massive sporting event with so many stakeholders, they put out messaging within the last several hours saying that they need more time. They need more time to figure out things like changing venues, changing bookings, cancellation fees, all that sort of thing. But they are letting this growing list of athletes and countries from around the world know that they are listening, and that they understand that the health and safety of athletes, as well as, frankly, their time to prepare for the Olympics, is their priority. And so we are now basically in wait-and-see mode to see what solution they do come up with, which does seem likely to be postponement.</s>HOLMES: You know, what are going to be the impact here, financially, logistically, for Japan, if it is moved forward? It sounds easy, but you know, apparently a lot of those stadiums are already booked for next year. I think the athletes' village has been presold. People are going to want to move in. It's going to be hard.</s>RIPLEY: It is going to be an absolute nightmare. And expensive. It could actually cost more, Michael, to postpone the Olympics than to cancel them altogether, according to a source of mine who works inside Tokyo 2020. That is because, as you mentioned, there are so many things that have already been lined up. You know, leases signed for the Olympic athletes village. Hotel rooms, millions of hotel rooms booked. Flights that will need to be canceled. Tickets that were, you know, sometimes $1,000 that will need to be refunded, or change fees. That sort of thing. Not to mention the fact that some of the venues might already be unavailable. And then, what if there's a conflict with other sporting events at whatever time they do decide to hold the Olympics? You know, they time these things and other sporting events schedule themselves around the Olympics. So there's not a conflict. Not to mention what will that mean for the training schedules of the athletes involved. So it is a huge undertaking, and that's precisely why Tokyo 2020 organizers and the IOC are saying they're working on it, but they might need up to four weeks before they actually make an announcement. It could actually take that long, they say, to sort everything out.</s>HOLMES: All right. Will Ripley, thanks very much there, in Tokyo for us. Well, Wuhan, China, the center of the original coronavirus outbreak, has reported no new cases for five straight days. Meanwhile, Thailand seeing a spike in the pandemic. Public health officials reported nearly 200 new cases in a single day. The World Health Organization has recorded almost 600 cases of the virus in Thailand. One death there. CNN senior producer Steven Jiang joins me now from Beijing. What are we expecting to see in Wuhan as this moves forward? No new cases for several days, and are those numbers reliable?</s>STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Well, Michael, the reliability of those numbers is very much a big question mark on the minds of many people, including residents, given the initial mishandling or even alleged the cover-up of this outbreak by local officials. In the past few days, we have seen numerous social media posts alleging the existence of new cases in Wuhan, some showing photos of public notices posted by property management officers at certain residential compounds. Now, these voices of skepticism have gotten so loud, the Wuhan government actually issued a statement on Sunday to deny these allegations. They say they have checked with all local hospitals and found no concealment of new cases. And there were no instances of coronavirus patients being denied treatment, because hospitals did not want to report new cases. But the authorities says some of these allegations were due to misunderstandings of earlier confirmed cases, be mistakenly thought to be new cases. At least in one instances, the authorities confirmed the discovery of one asymptomatic carrier of the coronavirus. But because of the national health authority's classification rules, carriers without symptoms are not listed as confirmed cases. And this, of course, has raised more alarm than calming things down, as you can imagine. But despite all these controversies and concerns, the Wuhan city government is moving ahead with its effort to resume some form of economic activities. They have removed checkpoints within city limits and also starting to allow people to come back into Wuhan if they're deemed healthy by the government -- Michael.</s>HOLMES: Yes. Interesting how the numbers are run there in China. Given that the new cases in China, the Chinese authorities already are saying imported. Tell us more about how those new arrivals are being handled.</s>JIANG: That's right. That's, increasingly, their focus. We have seen officials around the country, but especially here in Beijing, take increasingly drastic measures. Now the government has ordered all Beijing-bound international flights to be diverted to 12 other cities in China. So passengers will clear immigrations and customs at their first point of entry, and then undergo very thorough health screenings. Only those deemed healthy and low-risk will be allowed to re-board their planes to fly into Beijing. And in Shanghai, for example, also, the authorities have ordered all arriving international passengers who will not go to government quarantine facilities to take a mandatory coronavirus test -- Michael.</s>HOLMES: All right. Steven Jiang, good to have you there for us in Beijing. Appreciate it. All right. Another break. Now, when we come back, the most powerful woman in Europe going into self-quarantine. What that could mean for other European leaders. That and more, when we come back.