As China sets the stage for the Beijing Olympics which will commence on Friday, the capital city has shut down many residential areas north of the city centre, amid the growing concerns of a massive COVID outbreak, as the Beijing officials stated on Sunday. The city is on high alert due to the COVID surge. As per a report by AP, among 8,000 individuals who had arrived by the end of Saturday, 211 of them had tested positive for the virus, including a cross-country skier from Sweden and a snowboarder from Slovenia.
To avoid cross-infection, everyone travelling to China for the Olympics will be isolated from the general population. On Saturday, residents in Beijing’s Chaoyang district’s Anzhenli neighbourhood were isolated, according to AP News. The athletes are housed in hotels that have been encircled by makeshift barriers. They are only allowed to enter and exit in designated cars that transport them straight to the stadiums or other Olympic facilities.
The general public is not permitted to visit the hotel
The general public is not permitted to visit the hotel or site where the athletes are housed. Only a limited number of spectators will be permitted to attend the events. Any athlete who tests positive while inside the Olympic bubble will be isolated in a hospital or quarantined in the hotel to prevent the infection from spreading to other contenders.
Officials stated during a pandemic briefing that the city is also putting up 19 stations in the area to test citizens every day until Friday. Despite the fact that the number of cases is modest in comparison to other nations in the region, China has reinforced its zero-tolerance policy, which aims to interrupt the transmission chain as soon as it is discovered, according to Beijing News.
12 cases of COVID-19 between Saturday and Sunday
Pang Xinghuo, vice head of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, suggests that the Chinese capital reported a total of 12 cases of COVID-19 between 4 pm Saturday and 4 pm Sunday. All of the incidents were reported by people who were already on anti-pandemic medication, according to AP News. In Fengtai district, where some residential compounds were sealed down, the city performed repeated rounds of testing for millions of inhabitants this past week.
(Inputs from AP News)
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