The organizers of the next Winter Olympics have officially instituted the health bubble that will last until the Paralympics from March 4 to 13.
A “sanitary bubble“Anti-Covid was put in place on Tuesday around the sites of the Beijing Olympic Games, a month just before the start of the events which promise to be the most closely watched in the pandemic era. China, where the pandemic was first detected at the end of 2019, has largely eradicated the disease by resorting to very strict screening, tracing, containment and vaccination measures. Its borders were practically closed in March 2020 and international flights drastically reduced. In order to accommodate the 3,000 athletes and their staff in charge of organizing the Winter Olympics (February 4-20), a “health bubble” has been set up to avoid any contact between people from the foreigners and the local population outside this area.
Tuesday, this “closed loopWas officially instituted, before the arrival of the first foreign participants. Barriers kept passers-by a safe distance from facilities planned for the Games, such as the “Bird nest», The Olympic stadium where the opening ceremony will take place. The “bubbleIn fact extends to all places where foreign participants will pass, starting with the airport in Beijing, where two Japanese arrived on Tuesday on a plane from Tokyo, national television reported. The two travelers were taken care of separately by employees in full protective suits who accompanied them to the Olympic village “without waiting for the test resultsAnti-Covid, CCTV said.
A recommended booster dose
One month before the start of the Games, the organizers want to be calm. “We can say that we have practically completed all the preparations. Beijing is ready“, Assured AFP Zhao Weidong, communication manager of the organizing committee. “Within the closed loop, we will put in place very strict health measures, including daily Covid tests, to ensure that cases of contamination are quickly detected.“. All foreign participants must be vaccinated, the others being subject to a 21-day quarantine. “We also strongly recommend that you receive a booster dose.“Zhao said in an interview with AFP before the establishment of”bubble». «We are closely monitoring the new Omicron variant and its global impact“, He added, specifying that he is in close communication with the International Olympic Committee (IOC)”to ensure that there will be room for maneuver in countermeasures depending on the epidemic situation».
Chinese athletes and staff inside the bubble (volunteers, drivers, cooks, etc.) will not leave until after the Paralympic Games (March 4 to 13), after a period of quarantine. Spectators (only people residing in China will be allowed) will not enter the bubble. When moving from one site to another, participants will remain separated from the local population, for example with reserved cars on the high-speed train leading to the ski slopes. If China has largely defeated the epidemic, sporadic outbreaks appear regularly, as in recent weeks in the metropolis of Xi’an (north). The daily number of infected people has not exceeded 200 in this city, but this outbreak is the largest reported in China since the first epidemic outbreak in early 2020. The official Chinese toll remains at 4,636 dead and just over 100,000 confirmed patients .
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