Beijing Winter Olympics: Organising committee confirms 15 new cases of COVID

The Beijing Winter Olympics Organising Committee announced on Tuesday that at least 15 staff members were tested positive for COVID-19 on January 24. As per the Beijing 2022 official website, new arrivals accounted for 12 of the confirmed positive cases. The remaining three were identified among people already in the closed-loop, one of whom was said to be an athlete or team official, it stated. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 countermeasures for the Games have been enhanced by the Organizing Committee and Chinese authorities. They have changed the parameters for assessing nucleic acid test findings and reduced the duration of time close contacts must be put under restriction. 

As per the new measures, only individuals with a PCR test that shows a Cycle Threshold (CT) of less than 35  will be declared COVID-19 positive, rather than the previous 40. As CT levels have an inverse relationship with viral loads, the lower the number, the more difficult it is for a person to get a positive test result, Global Times reported. As per the report, participants with a CT less than 35 on their PCR results will be kept in isolation. However, they can be released if they do not show any symptoms of COVID-19 and their PCR results have been negative for three days in a row. 

The isolation period for "close contacts" reduced to seven days

The new regulation also shortened the isolation period for "close contacts" to seven days from 14 days. During this period, testing will be done twice a day, with the person having the option of taking it either through a nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab. The changes were made by the Organizing Committee after consulting with medical experts. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), it was developed in order to better adapt to the realities of the modern environment and to help the athletes, Global Times reported. 

Beijing reported the first case of Omicron last week

It is significant to mention here that last week China detected its first case of the highly transmissible Omicron variant in Beijing city where the Olympics 2022 is being organised. The case was reported in Beijing’s Haidian district. Besides, Shanghai and Guangdong provinces also separately recorded Omicron cases. As many as two cases of Omicron were conformed in Tianjin last week, which prompted the Chinese authorities to enforce a strict lockdown on the city’s 14 million residents.

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