(Beijing) Cold snap on the Beijing Winter Olympics: the organizing committee announced on Monday that it was canceling the sale of tickets to the general public due to a “complicated” epidemic situation, less than three weeks from the start. tests.
Posted at 9:41 a.m.
It was planned so far that people residing in China can buy tickets and attend the Games (February 4-20). Spectators from abroad already had no means of attending the competitions.
“Given that the epidemic situation is still difficult and complicated” in the country, where several cities have been struggling with outbreaks of COVID-19 in recent weeks, the organizing committee has canceled ticket sales.
“In order to protect the health and safety of staff and spectators […], it was decided to adjust the initial plan (and instead) to organize the arrival of spectators at the (competition) venues,” he said in a statement.
The organizing committee did not specify how these people will be selected or whether they will have to quarantine before going to the stadiums and to the edge of the ski slopes.
According to certain sources, invitations could in particular be given to civil servants or employees of public companies.
The number of new cases of COVID-19 in China reached its highest level since March 2020 on Monday and the authorities are particularly on the alert in the run-up to the Games.
An admittedly very limited total of 223 new cases have been reported in the country, including some of the highly contagious Omicron variant. Several regions of the country have been facing epidemic rebounds in recent weeks.
Contaminated letters?
Guangdong Province, which counts Guangzhou as its capital, has recorded nine new local cases of COVID-19, some of which are of the Omicron variant.
In this province, the city of Zhuhai, on the border with Macao, asked its inhabitants to avoid travel to other localities and began Monday to test the entire population. Schools have been closed.
Sixty-eight other cases of COVID-19 have also been reported in Henan Province, which borders Hebei where some competitions will take place.
Partial containment measures and massive screening have been put in place for several million residents.
Less than three weeks before the Beijing Winter Olympics, the authorities are mobilized. Especially since the Chinese capital reported this weekend a first case of the Omicron variant.
A Beijing health official, Pang Xinghuo, told reporters on Monday that the virus was found on a letter received from Canada by the infected person.
According to authorities, dozens of letters from the same batch were tested and five showed traces of coronavirus.
” Closed loop ”
The strain was different from Omicron cases in China, and similar to strains identified in North America last month, Mr.me Pang. “The possibility of infection through incoming objects cannot be ruled out,” the official said.
Since the discovery in 2020 of traces of the virus on a cutting board of imported salmon in a Beijing market, China has been particularly finicky with products from abroad.
The frozen food hypothesis at the origin of the COVID-19 epidemic in China had, however, been debunked by the WHO.
Following the discovery of the new case in Beijing, more than 13,000 people were tested in the capital, while some tourist sites were closed.
The city now requires a negative test before travel and a follow-up test after arrival.
The Chinese capital launched its “closed loop” concept last week.
This health bubble must prevent any direct contact between its future inhabitants (athletes, officials, volunteers, drivers, cooks) and the Chinese population.