The Beijing Winter Olympics will open on February 4, 2022. With 43 days from the deadline, China unveiled its health protocol for athletes on Thursday, December 23, in the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic which poses a serious threat to the competition, even in China, a country rather spared by this rebound. The number of cases is increasing significantly and the city of Xi’an – 13 million inhabitants – is now re-confined.
Throughout the Olympics, the delegations will therefore live under very close health surveillance. Their daily life will almost look like quarantine, confined in the giant health bubble of the Olympic Games, with screenings in the throat and nose scheduled every day. The analytical labs will be working around the clock, with an army of staff, to deliver the results very quickly. The authorities say to themselves “ready” to deal with possible outbreaks of epidemics. They have even pre-positioned hospitals to receive potential positive cases.
No missteps will be tolerated and the surveillance of the authorities will be extreme. Each organization arriving from abroad will also be placed under the direct control of a Chinese “liaison officer”. “Its role is to maintain close contact with the delegations, to ensure that they know the contents of the official guide on the sanitary protocol, to help them to carry out all the preparatory work before their arrival in China and to deal with a possible emergency linked to the epidemic “, explains Han Zirong, secretary general of the organizing committee of the Olympic Games.
Daily health monitoring will begin 14 days before arrival in China, thanks to a Chinese application that must be installed on his phone from France. Athletes must provide health information there. “The application will make it possible to actively ensure health monitoring from the country of origin with a temperature measurement at least twice a day and the monitoring of symptoms such as cough and sore throat”, explains the head of the epidemic control office to the organizing committee for the Olympic Games.
Only those who have completed the vaccination with two doses for at least two weeks will be able to enter the sanitary bubble. The third dose is not mandatory at this time, but highly recommended. To move around the port of the FPP2 mask will be necessary. The athletes will therefore not really be in an Olympic atmosphere, since they will also have to get used to meeting in the corridors of the hotels staff dressed in full protective clothing.
Finally, there will be no foreign spectators, confirm the authorities. For the Chinese public, the decision has not yet been made. The authorities are still reluctant to take the risk of seeing the epidemic resume in China because of the Olympics. The ticket office is not always open, but the infrastructure is equipped with bleachers ready to accommodate – in theory – around 3,000 people per site.