China: COVID infections among Olympic athletes, coaches rising at faster rate

A few days ahead of Beijing Winter Olympics, the organisers stated that athletes and team officials are testing positive for COVID-19 at considerably higher rates than other visitors to China. According to figures released by local organisers, at least 11 athletes and officials tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, January 31. They have been placed in isolation hotels to prevent the spread of the virus and are likely to miss their scheduled events, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

The report further revealed that athletes and officials had a positive test rate of 2.9% compared to 0.66% for Olympic "stakeholders" - which include workers as well as media personnel. This category included a total of 1,059 people. Athletes and officials reported a 40% higher positivity rate than other Olympic arrivals over a three-day period from last Saturday to Monday. The rates were verified in Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and other follow-up tests for thousands of individuals at the Beijing Olympics who would stay and work in closed-off areas separated from the general public. 

200 positive COVID cases reported at Olympics since Jan 23

As per the AP report, the infection rates for athletes and officials were 100 times higher on Monday, January 31, in comparison to workers. Only one in over 60,000 daily tests from "stakeholders" was positive, compared to five of 3,103 tests from the athletes-officials group. Since January 23, a total of 200 positive COVID-19 cases have been reported at the Olympics. Athletes and officials made up 67 of the 200, while the remaining 133 were accounted for by "stakeholders," the report added. 

Senior-most athlete representative also tests positive

Audrey King, a Hong Kong skier who recently returned from a training camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is one of the skiers who tested positive in Beijing. Speaking to the South China Morning Post, she stated that she was free of symptoms and expected to compete in the women's slalom on February 9. Meanwhile, two-time Olympic hockey winner Emma Terho, the most senior athlete representative at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is also in an isolation hotel after testing positive upon arrival. "Even though this is not the start I envisaged, I was happy to see the protocols that Beijing 2022 has put in place are working well," Terho, an IOC member from Finland, wrote in an Instagram post.  

(With inputs from AP)

Image: AP/Pixabay/Representative