The positive attitude towards vaccination and testing among all age groups has led to a high standard of protection in the judo community. Therefore from today an updated COVID protocol is applied, while also adhering to local rules in the IJF World Judo Tour (WJT) host countries.
Here are the main points:
– The protocol is a general document that defines the framework only and the practical content is up to the host countries who have learned well throughout the years how to deliver a safe environment or how to carry out the covid testing service.
– No bubble: delegations are expected to practise common sense and protect themselves for the benefit of the events and their participants.
– Even though the protocol is now very permissive, delegations must be aware that if the test results show a high number of positives, any event can still be called off for the protection of the participants and therefore it is everyone’s responsibility to keep themselves healthy and avoid participation if there’s any doubt about their infection status.
– There is less testing.
– Antigen tests are accepted as pre-event tests before travelling.
– For shorter events there will be only 1 test, the pre-weigh-in one.
– The antigen test provides a relief from those ‘false positives;’ for some people continuously testing positive for months after an infection, even though they are not contagious anymore.
– Vaccination data is still collected and we would like to encourage everyone to report their vaccination/recovery status as the more data we have the quicker the Medical Commission can evaluate the changes in the hazard level and can further soften the protocol. All changes that have been applied over the past months were based on the high vaccination level and the gradually decreasing number of cases at events. Anyone who provides data contributes to a faster change.
– Travelling is still risky and the so the Medical Commission strongly recommends wearing masks on aeroplanes and in any closed environments, while travelling, for the safety of the events.
– The new protocol is available at covid.ijf.org in the protocol section.
