The logo for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is seen in Tokyo on February 15, 2020. (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

TOKYO - Japanese Olympic organizing committee executive member Haruyuki Takahashi plans to propose at talks this month that the committee consider the possibility of postponing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to the coronavirus outbreak, Kyodo reported Wednesday, citing a phone call with Takahashi.

“In light of the reality, we have to respond accordingly,” Kyodo quoted Takahashi as saying.

Takahashi’s remarks in a Wall Street Journal report that the games could be delayed by one or two years if unable to be held on schedule prompted other Japanese officials to throw water on the possibility of a delay earlier Wednesday. Olympics minister Seiko Hashimoto called postponement “inconceivable,” while acknowledging that the final decision rests with the International Olympic Committee.

Tokyo 2020 organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori said the committee isn’t considering changing its plans, adding that he’d called Takahashi, who had apologized and told Mori he had misspoken, according to the Asahi newspaper.

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“It is our basic stance that we press ahead with preparation for a safe and secure Olympics,” Mori told reporters. “Therefore we are not at all thinking about changing courses or plans.”

It is our basic stance that we press ahead with preparation for a safe and secure Olympics. Therefore we are not at all thinking about changing courses or plans

Yoshiro Mori, President, Tokyo 2020

Takahashi said in an interview with the WSJ published on Wednesday that the board had not discussed the impact of the virus on the Games, having last met in December, before the epidemic spread.

He, meanwhile, told Reuters that the financial damage from cancelling the Games or holding them without spectators would be too great, while a delay of less than a year would clash with other major professional sports schedules.

“We need to start preparing for any possibility. If the Games can’t be held in the summer, a delay of one or two years would be most feasible,” Takahashi said.

Experts say a one-year postponement to the same time next year would pose major logistical problems but was doable for broadcasters because it fits into their generally open summer schedule.

Japan has reported nearly 1,300 cases, including about 700 from a cruise ship that was quarantined near Tokyo last month. On Tuesday, it saw the biggest number of infections in a single day, of 59 cases, according to public broadcaster NHK.

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With every new spike in the figures, speculation has swirled that the Tokyo 2020 Games, due to open on July 24, could be cancelled, delayed, or held without spectators, like many pre-Olympic qualifiers and other unrelated sports events have been in the run-up.

With Bloomberg inputs