Beijing Olympics says growing COVID cases are 'within controllable range'

The COVID-19 situation at the Beijing Winter Olympics is within the "expected controllable range,” despite increasing positive cases being detected, a senior official at China's Olympics Pandemic Prevention and Control Office said Tuesday.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee has reported 200 COVID cases since Jan. 23 among airport arrivals and those in the Games "closed loop" bubble that separates all event personnel, including athletes, from the public.

"As more people are entering China the imported COVID-19 cases are increasing," said Huang Chun, deputy director general of the committee's Pandemic Prevention and Control Office at a press briefing.

Huang said rising cases were also a result of more effective and accurate COVID detection techniques by customs.

Games organizers reported a total of 24 new COVID cases among Games-related personnel Jan. 31, of which 16 were athletes.

Many athletes have been shut out from the Games, which will run Feb. 4 to 20, after testing positive on arrival at the airport. While many more are put in isolation after testing positive for COVID but are asymptomatic.

"Getting to the Olympics is never easy, and this time, as a new norm, it has been the most challenging," Elana Meyers Taylor, a three times Olympic medalist in bobsled, wrote on social media from her isolation hotel.

China credits the strict COVID control measures, including frequent nucleic acid testing, as helping prevent clustered cases inside the closed loop.

"(The COVID-19 situation) is generally within our expected controllable range. So the Games participants, including athletes, and the Chinese public do not have to worry," said Huang.

He said Olympics organizers were not considering any major changes to COVID control policies at the Games. (Reuters)