What kind of data would they be looking for that got the Olympics cancelled for an entire year? Whether or not the virus was deadly?

Several countries (who were not ran by staunch right wing idiots like Trump or Bolsonaro), already knew that and immediately declared a public health emergency was now in effect.

Japan also got this right in the beginning as well. Shinzo Abe or whoever was Prime Minister of Japan last year, was not going to host the Olympics at a time when maybe half the world was still marching in the streets against masks, and doing all other sorts of stupid shit before governments got their act together and enabled restrictions.

One year later, Japan was almost on the right path towards opening up and even hosting a safe olympics but 'shocker', the current Prime Minister is another Conservative fool who dismissed concerns that Japan was still not fully prepared to host the games safely and that more effort should have went towards supporting the local health industry first.

But since the country already pissed away Billions of dollars in a botched effort to try and save face, the Olympic games were scheduled to go ahead anyway. But the problems with doing this are so apparent. Several athletes are already confirmed sick, while they're still expected to compete in physical sports. It wont surprise me if we hear more confirmed cases over the next two weeks, especially when Tokyo itself has also seen cases skyrocket in the past couple of days.