by Tony Munroe
BEIJING, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Organizers of the Beijing Olympics said on Sunday they had identified 72 COVID-19 infections among 2,586 people linked to the Games who arrived in China from January 4 to 22, with no cases among the 171 athletes and team members who entered the country during this period.
Preparations for the Winter Games are coming to an end amid a sharp increase in the number of positive cases for the highly contagious Omicron variant. The Games are due to take place from February 4 to 20 in a “bubble” that separates all participants in the event from the public.
Of the confirmed cases, 39 were detected during testing at the airport and 33 inside the “bubble”, organizers said. Participants are tested daily, with 336,421 PCR tests performed from January 4 to 22.
Brian McCloskey, chairman of the Beijing 2022 medical expert group, said the numbers were consistent with those from the Tokyo Games last summer and in line with expectations.
“We never set a goal of zero cases in a closed loop,” he said in an online press briefing on Sunday.
All Games participants need two negative PCR test results within 96 hours of leaving for China, with most traveling on specially chartered charter flights.
Last week, organizers said tickets for the Olympics would not be sold to the general public but distributed to groups of people forced to adhere to strict prevention measures before, during and after attending the events.
China has successfully contained COVID-19 outbreaks on its territory since the virus emerged in the central city of Wuhan and has virtually closed its borders to international arrivals.
On Sunday, the Beijing city government rolled out new measures to contain COVID-19 after detecting nine locally transmitted cases the day before.
(French version Benjamin Mallet)