Games shielded against the coronavirus

With its hermetically sealed bubble and daily PCR tests, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are shielded against the coronavirus. But covid-19 is so elusive, especially its super-contagious omicron variant, that it manages to slip through the strict security measures in force in China.

On Friday, the day of the opening ceremony, 45 new cases were detected, twice as many as the previous day. Of these, 25 were athletes and members of Olympic teams and the rest were workers and journalists. 26 of the positives were located with the PCR carried out upon landing at the Beijing airport and the other 19 among the 71,000 tests that are carried out every day on all the people who are inside the Olympic bubble.

In addition to the almost 3,000 athletes and thousands of members of the national committees, staff of the sponsoring companies and reporters, there are the Chinese workers of the organization and the volunteers. To enter the bubble, both these workers and the volunteers, mostly university students, have had to follow a quarantine that has prevented them from spending the lunar new year with their family and they will have to undergo another to leave when the Games are over.

In total, more than 680,000 tests have been carried out since January 23, when the bulk of the participants began to arrive. Thanks to these controls, the organizers have discovered some 300 positive cases of coronavirus, a third of them inside the bubble. With all the participants vaccinated, most with the third booster dose, those infected do not suffer serious symptoms and only a dozen have required hospitalization, all mild. But the Chinese protocol requires them to be isolated until they test negative, which has dampened the spirits of some athletes, such as Belgium’s Kim Meylemans, who competes in skeleton slides. Her moving video crying, in which she told that she had to spend seven days confined in a quarantine center with two PCR tests each day, led the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to intervene so that she was transferred to an isolation area inside the Villa Olympic.

With a trickle of infections every day, the covid-19 has also hit the Norwegian team, which threatens its hegemony in the Winter Olympics. Overcoming adversity, skier Therese Johaug won the first gold medal of these Games for her country this Saturday and, together with the victory of the 4×6 kilometer relay team, makes Norway lead the podium after the first day of competition.

“We knew that it was going to be a situation with a lot of control, with the PCRs and all the restrictions, but we have been surprised that they do it in a respectful way and the people are very kind. That makes us comfortable and we can concentrate on our sport, ”the Spanish flag bearer, Queralt Castellet, one of the team’s medal options, explains to this newspaper.

The garbage, also in the bubble

In Beijing 2022, each day does not start with the typical morning training, but with a PCR and recording the temperature in a mobile application and if one has symptoms or not. Luckily, the test is done in the throat, which makes it easier than going through the nose. To take the samples, each building in which the participants of the Games are housed has its own team of nurses. Just in case someone forgets, one of them waits every morning at the elevator doors to indicate the place where the tests are done.

Sheathed in their special protective suits, they take their work in a good mood and make the daily routine less unpleasant. “The best news is that there is no news”, they laugh when we ask them where and when we can see the results. To speed up the process, the authorities only notify the positives, not the negatives.

A nurse talks on the phone. /

PAUL M. DÍEZ

Along with the PCR tests, other inspectors are taking samples from surfaces in common areas in search of traces of coronavirus. For example, from the water bottles and the coffee machine at the Zhangjiakou press center, where most of the ski and snowboard events are held.

The nurses are not the only ones who are equipped with these ghostly white jumpsuits, which are also worn by the cleaners and many of the hotel staff. To prevent the coronavirus, a legion of workers carrying a small can of disinfectant on their backs constantly sprays the facilities and buses. The zeal for health is such that even the garbage generated in these Olympic Games is stored inside the bubble so that there is no risk of the virus escaping to the outside.

In the main press center, next to Beijing’s El Nido Stadium, robots prepare meals that should only be boiled, such as dumplings, and waiters serve cocktails from the bar dressed in protective suits. To minimize human contact as much as possible, some dishes are delivered and collected from a conveyor that runs through the ceiling and carries a tray that then automatically lowers to the diner’s table.

In addition to going through temperature controls at the entrance to each interior area, some restaurants write down the name and telephone number of customers to track them in case a positive appears, since close contacts are also isolated. With all these measures, the Beijing 2022 Armored Games aim to defeat its most dangerous rival: the coronavirus.