Top doctors warn that the 72 COVID cases detected so far at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing are to be expected.
A snow sports facility with a masked man wearing an Olympic beanie.
The Winter Olympics in Beijing begin on February 4th. VCG/Diansen Wu
So far, 72 COVID-19 cases have been identified among Beijing Olympic workers.
Brian McCloskey, the Games’ chief medical specialist, remarked that this was to be expected.
So yet, no athletes nor team officials have tested positive.
The leading medical specialist predicted 72 instances of COVID-19 among the 2,586 Olympic personnel hospitalized to China this month.
According to the Olympic Committee, the 171 athletes and team personnel already in China had not tested positive.
The Games will take place in a “closed loop,” which will isolate the Games’ personnel and participant teams from the rest of Beijing.
According to Brian McCloskey, chair of the Beijing 2022 medical expert board, the 72 cases discovered so far are identical to conditions seen during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
He went on to say that the difficulty for organizers would be to detect instances early and prevent them from spreading.
Everyone in the Olympic bubble is tested for COVID at the airport and on a regular basis in Beijing.
The organizers did not specify if any of the 72 occurrences were Omicron-related.
A “zero infection” paradigm, according to a major medical expert, is unrealistic for the next Beijing Winter Olympics.
While the highly transmissible Omicron type remains a risk, the “closed loop” that isolates the Olympic family from the rest of the country is still operational.
Between the 4th and 22nd of January, roughly 340,000 tests detected 72 confirmed Covid-19 cases.
The International Olympic Committee and Beijing 2022 organizers have issued their first Covid-19 numbers ahead of the Games, which begin on February 4 and end on February 20.
Medical professionals at Beijing airport examined 2,586 people between January 4 and 22, with 39 receiving positive results. There were 33 verified positives out of 336,421 closed loop tests. Among the 171 athletes, there were no positive tests.
According to the IOC, all positive samples have been isolated and close links established in compliance with the anti-coronavirus methods outlined in the Beijing 2022 playbooks. The Omicron version was conspicuously absent from the IOC’s list.
Before leaving their home nations, athletes, authorities, and anybody else entering the closed loop must be tested for the coronavirus. They will also be tested on a daily basis in the Olympic zones.
To avoid releasing anybody who tests positive at the airport and then tests negative, everyone who tests positive must also submit a negative result.
Residents in an area where a small cluster of Coronavirus illnesses was detected would be investigated, authorities said on Sunday.
Several rare breakouts on the Chinese mainland, most notably in Beijing, have put China’s tight “zero Covid” policy to the test.
With 43 reported instances, the cluster has been identified as being located in the southern Beijing suburb of Fengtai. According to officials, all two million citizens will be screened for the virus, and those from high-risk locations will be barred from leaving.
McCloskey rejected concerns raised earlier this month by numerous German coaches concerning fraudulent closed loop testing. He stated that the samples will be evaluated by Beijing physicians and tested in a Chinese laboratory.
“All of them follow international rules,” McCloskey says. We utilize the same tracking technology in medical testing throughout the world to verify that the correct findings are given to the correct people.
A total of 3,000 athletes from three different time zones are slated to compete in the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Yanqing, 75 kilometers away, will provide alpine skiing, sledding, and sliding, as well as indoor ice activities. The majority of the contests will be held at Zhangjiakou, which is 180 kilometers from Beijing.