China’s meticulous plans to prevent an Olympics-seeded COVID-19 outbreak by sealing all participants inside a “closed loop” for the upcoming Winter Games will be tested by the emergence of the highly infectious Omicron variant.
Olympic rings are seen behind Japan's national flag, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak, at the waterfront area at Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo, Japan, on August 6, 2020.
Organisers believe their measures “can ensure the Winter Olympic Games and the Winter Paralympic Games can be held safely and on schedule,” Yan Jiarong, a spokesperson for the organising committee, told a news conference last Thursday. In Tokyo, which took place when Delta was surging globally, a bubble was strictly enforced, although local residents such as journalists and volunteers were able to enter and exit at will and some overseas visitors could leave it after being in the country for 14 days and repeatedly testing negative.
Games organisers say that test events held earlier this year involving some 2,000 overseas participants had shown Beijing’s COVID-19 measures to be effective. Beijing reported only a handful of cases among athletes during test events. About 85% of the Chinese population have been vaccinated, mostly with Chinese shots manufactured by Sinopharm and Sinovac. All of the 20,000 or so Chinese volunteers and others who will enter the Olympic closed loop have been vaccinated. Efficacy readings in clinical trials for the Chinese shots ranged between 50% and 83.5% against symptomatic disease, below the 90%-plus figures for shots from Pfizer and Moderna .
However, such tests cannot be relied on to detect cases during the virus’ incubation period, and organisers have acknowledged that they expect a “certain number” of COVID-19 cases given the large number of international arrivals.
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