COVID remains the biggest challenge for Beijing 2022
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Protecting the Beijing Winter Olympics from the coronavirus is the “biggest challenge,” organizers said yesterday, as people in some regions in China were under stay-at-home orders to contain small outbreaks 100 days before the Games.
In February, the capital will become the world’s first host of the Summer and Winter Games, and last week welcomed the Olympic flame with a low-key ceremony.
Case numbers remain relatively low in China, with only three reported in Beijing yesterday and small clusters of infections elsewhere. The Chinese government has maintained a zero-COVID approach.
“The pandemic is the biggest challenge to the organization of the Winter Olympics,” Zhang Jiandong, executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee, told a press conference.
China’s strict rules “can reduce the risks and impact of COVID-19,” he said, adding that those in the Games’ stringent bubble, who do not comply with anti-epidemic measures, will face consequences including disqualification.
Zhang told reporters that “all preparations are complete” and venues finished.
Those who do not comply with the provisions in the epidemic prevention manual may face warnings and temporary or permanent cancelation of registration qualifications.
For more severe violations, consequences such as expulsion from the Games and cancelation of qualifications will be incurred.
Coming just six months after the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Summer Games, the Winter Olympics will be held in a “closed-loop” bubble.
The estimated 2,900 athletes must be fully vaccinated or face 21 days’ quarantine upon arrival.
Some of the 2008 Summer Games venues will be used during the winter spectacle, including the “Bird’s Nest” national stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies. But only people living in China will be allowed to buy tickets to attend the Games, which run from February 4 to 20.
Officials in Hebei, which neighbors Beijing, said yesterday that the province was building mobile labs to handle up to 40,000 samples for daily COVID-19 tests during the Games.
China reported 50 new domestic cases on Tuesday. The northwestern Ningxia region, which has recorded 14 new cases since Saturday, closed nearly 800 schools and authorities said they would test 3.5 million people in the regional capital Yinchuan for a second time.
Northwest China’s Gansu Province has decided to put off its qualification examination for primary and secondary school teachers, the provincial education department said yesterday.
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