A recent spike in COVID-19 cases in Japan has forced 95 percent of the country's cities and towns planning to host exchange programs with Tokyo Paralympic athletes to cancel the projects or change their formats, a Kyodo News survey showed Thursday.

Of the 101 local governments that applied for a Cabinet Secretariat-sponsored initiative aimed at promoting social inclusiveness, 36 percent have scrapped their events, while 59 percent have decided to go online or use other means of communication, according to the survey.

A flame-collecting ceremony for the Tokyo Paralympics is held in the Chiba Prefecture city of Ichihara in eastern Japan on Aug. 18, 2021, ahead of the games starting later in the month. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

Only 2 percent of the local governments have decided to go ahead with their plans, according to the survey of prefectural and municipal governments conducted between late July and mid-August that received responses from 99 of them.

Of those that have canceled or altered their programs, 37 percent said they were concerned about potential adverse effects.

Kenji Kanda, a 48-year-old wheelchair user in Beppu, a southwestern city that has canceled its exchange program, said the decision is a letdown.

"I was excited to see (the athletes) from a close distance as I imagined that must have been compelling," he said of a pre-Paralympic training camp of the Laotian powerlifting team that had been scheduled to be held in the city in Oita Prefecture.

The so-called host towns have organized related programs such as workshops allowing participants to experience Paralympic sports and courses aimed at promoting understanding of people with disabilities.

Among those side events, only 9 percent had been canceled and 41 percent had been scaled down or postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the rest were unaffected, the survey found.

Still, 63 percent of the local governments said their accessibility for people with disabilities at public facilities has improved since they joined the initiative.

The 13-day Paralympics, involving thousands of athletes from around the world, will begin Tuesday, while Tokyo remains under a COVID-19 state of emergency and public worries persist over staging the games during a pandemic.

The survey showed 47 percent of the local governments were strongly or somewhat anxious that hosting the Paralympics amid voices of opposition could hamper momentum toward building an inclusive society.

Daisuke Uehara, a silver medalist in para ice hockey and an adviser for the initiative, stressed the importance of continued efforts to promote an inclusive society beyond the Tokyo Games.

"I hope they will come up with ways to turn such efforts into daily activities," he said.