At the moment the IOC and Japan are at a stalemate because neither want to be responsible for paying for the result of a cancellation.
Canada stepping up to the plate is important because hopefully it encourages other countries to follow suit.
Nobody in their right mind should even be remotely considering holding a major global event this year.
It is a long and convoluted story. 1964 Tokyo Olympics - organized by Abe's grandfather - then Japan PM (yes, Japan is democracy but political establishment is hereditary) - are seen as a start of Japan's economic miracle.
https://www.ft.com/content/d6142984-194b-11e3-83b9-00144feab...
https://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2013/09/05/the-1964-toky...
It is already a fantasy when the virus outbreak outside China like late Feb.
Australia is distancing itself as well. I don't expect it will take long before others join in.
Can't see many countries risking their top athletes right now, anyway.
Even the opening ceremony would be a massive risk according to what's currently known.
A lot can happen in 4 weeks, but the changes that need to take place in time for the Olympics (Vaccine? Effective treatment? Scalable testing and containment?) appear to be a long way off.
And what happens if the IOC end up needing to ban certain countries still fighting the issue?
It would be pretty important if we could pull this off.
Part I suspect is the money in winning and how some countries won't be at 100% vs let's prove as humans we can achieve something as a global community in a crisis.
There can't be in person spectators and there will be isolations either side.
But we can do it.
We can achieve something. Just not this.
Olympic games are 20% for sport and 80% for the money brought by spectators/tourists. The host country spends billions in local infrastructures (stadiums, hotels, roads, &c.) it would make no sense to have the competitions without in person spectators.