Daily COVID-19 infections among athletes and team officials at the Beijing Winter Olympics jumped to 19 on Friday (28 Jan) from two a day earlier, as Games organizers warned of more cases in coming days.
Including the athletes and officials, the organizing committee said in a statement on Saturday (29 Jan) that 36 Games-related personnel were found to be infected – 29 when they arrived at the Beijing airport and seven already in the “closed loop” bubble that separates event personnel from the public.
The Games’ medical chief, Brian McCloskey, nevertheless told a news conference that organizers are “confident” in their system of COVID-19 prevention, and infections are unlikely to leak out into the public.
According to a Reuters tally, cases among athletes and team officials exceeded those for “other stakeholders”, including media, sponsors and staff, for the first time since China started releasing daily numbers of Olympics-related coronavirus cases on January 23.
The Games are to run from Friday to February 20, its bubble sealed off from the rest of China, where the government’s zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy has all but shut the country’s border to international arrivals. (NNT)
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