The coronavirus outbreak has forced the postponement of numerous Tokyo 2020 qualifiers in various sports, leaving officials with a headache over how to resolve the situation fairly.

There have now been more than 126,000 cases across the world, with the World Health Organization yesterday declaring the outbreak as a pandemic.

Coe acknowledged the outbreak had led conversation at the World Athletics Council meeting, which took place over two days here.

Several Council members were forced to participate via teleconference because of increased travel restrictions introduced by nations.

Coe claimed athletics was less impacted than other sports with regard to qualification events, with athletes having numerous opportunities to earn Tokyo 2020 spots.

"This has exercised a great deal of time and attention both within the headquarters here in Monaco and across our member federations trying to deal with the fallout from this," he said.

"Our sport is actually in good shape, we have, of course, had to deal with some postponements and those are never easy to deal with.

"We have navigated our way through that.

"With athlete qualification, we have many more opportunities than virtually any other sport for our athletes to qualify for events and particularly the Olympic Games.

"Many of our athletes have already qualified, with that process having been ongoing for 10 months."

For the 10,000 metres, marathon, race walks, combined events and relays, the qualification period began on January 1 in 2019 and is due to conclude on June 29,

For all other events, the qualification period began on July 1 last year through to June 29.

Athletes can qualify in one of two ways - either by virtue of their world ranking position at the end of the qualification period, or by achieving the entry standard within the qualification period.

Coe also suggested the World Athletics Continental Tour, which was announced in January, could help athletes impacted by the crisis.

A group of 10 cities are set to host Gold level athletics meetings across four continents as part of the pilot year for the tour.

The new series has three categories of Gold, Silver and Bronze, which will determine the quality of competition and the prize money on offer.

"We have flexibility in that system and have more opportunities to compete," Coe said.

"We have more opportunities this year because of the creation of the Continental Tour, which is a product aimed at breathing life into what in some parts of the world have been challenging times for one-day meetings.

"It is serving a purpose and will be coming to the rescue of many of our competitors, adding to those opportunities.

"Where we have any challenges, we will be closely monitoring with our Member Federations.

"Where athletes have got particular challenges, we will stand ready to help them."

Numerous sporting events have been impacted, with the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing among the events to have been rescheduled.

The World Half Marathon Championships in Poland was also among sporting events to have been postponed to date, with the event moving from March 29 until October 17.

Several half-marathon and marathon events around the world have been impacted by the outbreak.