The Beijing Olympics begin Friday, under the threat of Covid-19.
Officially, China is one of the countries that has best managed to stem the Covid-19 pandemic, thanks to massive screenings and repeated confinements. The country, which claims to have counted only around 4,600 deaths since the appearance of the virus in Wuhan in 2019, has done everything possible to limit the risk of spread as much as possible as the Winter Games approach. A few months after the Tokyo Olympics, which also had to deal with illness and give up welcoming the public, China must also adapt.
To read :Covid, security and human rights… tension rises two weeks before the Beijing Olympics
To avoid any contamination and the outbreak of cases in Beijing, a particularly strict health bubble has been put in place. The goal is to prevent the 60,000 people present in this bubble (teams, employees, volunteers, media and athletes in particular) from crossing paths with the local population. On their arrival, athletes are welcomed by teams in full protective gear. They are also going to have to be tested every day. Last week, the Radio Canada site was concerned about this very strict protocol and in particular the PCR tests carried out on site, the sensitivity of which would be higher than in the rest of the world, raising fears of cases of false positives on the part of people who contracted the virus in December and of whom there are still traces in the body.
And the tension should not decrease since the Chinese authorities are already facing a rise in cases. On Sunday, the city recorded around twenty new contaminations, the highest number since June 2020. A few weeks ago, China had also announced that no tickets would be sold and that the public could only be present once chosen by invitation.
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