Although organizers of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are maintaining tight restrictions to limit the number of COVID-19 infections, cases have been inching up. Chinese authorities said there were 308 positive cases of COVID-19 detected in people seeking to enter the “bubble” that Beijing has set up to reduce a pandemic risk at the events, according to The New York Times. Two-thirds of the positive tests were among people who came through Beijing Capital International Airport. Authorities said they administered more than 71,000 tests on Thursday and discovered 21 cases. The closed loop “bubble” system keeps Olympic-related personnel, media, and athletes (about 60,000 people) confined to their own areas for the duration of the 2022 Beijing Games without coming in contact with the outside world. Bubble areas are built around specific sporting venues with their own hotels, conference centers, and other facilities. The BBC described the intensive efforts to prevent virus spread as constant vigilance, including “robots serving drinks, temperature-controlled sleep pods, and disinfectant everywhere.” Personnel must always keep up with social distancing and wear a face covering except when in their own rooms. “The Chinese have created a remarkably comprehensive bubble within which are confined all who have to do with the Olympics,” says William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease specialist and professor of preventive medicine and health policy at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. “Even gaining admittance to the bubble is difficult. Everyone undergoes rigorous repeated screening. Nonetheless, omicron is both highly contagious and wily. It already has made it past the screeners and has been detected among some athletes and staff.” Participants need to have at least two negative tests within 96 and 72 hours before they depart to travel to the games, and they will be tested immediately upon arrival. PCR deep-throat swab tests are administered every day to minimize the risk of undetected positive cases that could transmit the virus. Medical personnel take throat swabs at sample collection sites at the Olympic Villages and other specific venues, including accommodation sites. Infected individuals are placed in isolation and released back into the bubble areas once they test negative. Athletes and game participants who test positive and are asymptomatic will be discharged from isolation once they have two consecutive negative PCR test results 24 hours apart. The Beijing Olympics announced that 11 athletes and officials who arrived by air on January 31 tested positive, and they were immediately placed in nearby hotels to isolate. Three U.S. bobsledders tested positive just days before the start of the games on Friday. The bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor tweeted, “After arriving to Beijing on January 27, on January 29, I tested positive for COVID-19. I am asymptomatic and currently at an isolation hotel — and yes I am completely isolated. Getting to the Olympics is never easy, and this time, as a new mom, it has been the most challenging.” A spokesperson for the U.S. Bobsled team said that he thought all members would soon test negative and be able to compete. The Russian figure skater Mikhail Kolyada was forced to withdraw from the competition because he was unable to meet the requirement of testing negative twice before his flights. “We have always said the target is not zero cases; the target is zero spread,” said Dr. Brian McCloskey, the chair of the Beijing 2022 Medical Expert Panel (MEP) in a press release. “Already at the Tokyo Games we knew there would be some people who would come through and they would test positive after they arrived. The challenge is to make sure we pick those up very quickly and that they do not cause a spreading event.”
