It’s decided, foreign spectators will not have citizenship at the Beijing Winter Olympics. The competition, which will be held from February 4 to 20, 2022, will be reserved for the Chinese public due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on Wednesday. Another important info: the Olympic body adds that only fully vaccinated participants will be exempt from quarantine, and will integrate a strict bubble. The others will have to observe 21 days of isolation, except case by case exemption with a “Proof of medical exemption”.
These decisions, announced by the IOC but taken by the Chinese organizers, are a foretaste of the measures that will be unveiled in October to prevent the Winter Games from turning into the hotbed of contamination. A threat that had already poisoned the preparation for the Tokyo Olympics this summer.
As the epidemic situation evolves, marked both by the spread of Covid-19 variants and by increasingly extensive vaccine coverage, the options selected differ from those in Tokyo. The closed door is currently excluded, and the treatment of athletes will depend on their vaccination status.
The “bubble” Olympic – a closed-circuit organization now familiar to the sports world – also promises to be more rigorous than in Japan. It will not allow mingling with the population and provides for a daily covid test for “All participants in the Games”, as well as “For the workforce” residing in China.
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