UUnder strict precautionary measures due to the corona pandemic, the Olympic villages for the Beijing Winter Games have officially opened. More than 360 athletes and team members from more than 20 countries are expected to move into the accommodations at the opening on Thursday, Chinese state television reported. Since last week, however, athletes and advance delegations have also arrived and moved in.
Virus prevention and control are “the most important tasks” of management in villages, said management team director Shen Qianfan. For the Winter Games, which open on February 4th, there are three Olympic Villages at the respective venues. They are spread over the capital, Yanqing, 75 kilometers away, and Zhangjiakou, 180 kilometers from the gates of Beijing.
The accommodations, like the venues, are similar to high-security zones. Athletes and team members are only allowed to move in hermetically “closed circuits” (closed loops) – are thus largely cut off from their host country. It is less about protecting the Olympic participants from external infections. Rather, it is intended to prevent the virus from being brought to China by foreign guests.
Strict measures for the athletes
While the pandemic is peaking in other countries, the world’s most populous country is currently only registering a few dozen infections per day. The Health Commission reported 25 local infections nationwide on Thursday, five of them in the 20 million metropolis of Beijing. With strict measures such as curfews for many millions of people, mass tests, contact tracing and forced quarantine, China has had the virus largely under control for more than a year and a half.
To this end, China has largely sealed itself off from other countries. There are hardly any international flights. Visas are only granted in exceptional cases. The few people entering the country usually have to stay in a quarantine hotel for three weeks, which spares vaccinated Olympic participants. But they can only move in the Olympic bubble, are transported in shielded shuttle buses from the athletes’ village to the competition site, and have to be tested daily.
The same applies to thousands of Chinese employees in the Olympic villages. According to Chinese information, they are all boosted, live in similarly isolated accommodations nearby and only move in separate buses. External contacts are “not possible”, the organizers assert.
Beijing will house 2,300 athletes and coaches, Yanqing 1,400 participants, while Zhangjiakou has the largest village with around 2,700 beds. The virus prevention goes well beyond what participants at the Summer Games in Japan experienced, where the Olympic bubble certainly had holes. “It must be clear to everyone that this is not like Tokyo,” said a European diplomat familiar with the security measures.
Spectators from abroad are also not allowed. In addition, the tickets are not sold freely in Beijing, but only distributed officially in order to have any infections under control. In the spectator stands, it will be mainly employees of state-owned companies and students from universities in Beijing.
To do this, they must be boosted and demonstrate two negative PCR tests 24 hours apart within 96 hours. Also, spectators must not have been anywhere in the two weeks before where there were infections. Controlling the issuing of tickets in this way “greatly reduces the likelihood of an outbreak,” the party-affiliated newspaper Global Times quoted a Chinese epidemiologist as saying. Otherwise it would be difficult to track viewers.
