China confident to keep athletes safe during Games

Organizers of the upcoming Beijing Games will monitor the potential impact of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, but are confident that planned safety measures will allow the events to go ahead largely unaffected, officials said Thursday.

"We believe that the relevant preventive measures in the guidebook for pandemic prevention have undergone rigorous scientific evaluation and are effective in ensuring safety and preventing the spread of the epidemic," said Yan Jiarong, news release official on the Beijing 2022 organizing committee.

China has mostly kept the coronavirus under control with the implementation of a zero-tolerance policy.

But the omicron variant has posed new threats ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The country has taken drastic measures, including frequent lockdowns and mass testing, to handle domestic outbreaks.

And Beijing is determined to prevent any public health risk caused by the Winter Olympics.

The games in February will be held inside bubbles, or closed-loop areas as Chinese officials put it, to ensure that the outside world and all Olympic personnel, many of whom will be arriving from overseas, are isolated from each other.

Officials said on Thursday that a system has also been established to handle waste disposal and cleaning of venues during the Winter Olympics.

They also disclosed that measures to handle confirmed cases inside the bubbles would be similar to those being taken outside.

Anyone testing positive for the virus inside the bubbles will be immediately sent to a hospital for treatment and quarantine, with contact tracing and disinfection of relevant areas following.

"We believe that these measures can effectively reduce the risk of the pandemic," said Yan.