Chinese state media on Sunday reported more lockdowns and mass testing programs in Beijing neighborhoods as the first group of athletes and staff arrived at the Olympic village.
The Winter Games, dubbed the “Genocide Games” by human rights activists to highlight the Chinese regime’s atrocities, are now less than two weeks away.
“Beijing beefed up anti-epidemic measures through wider mass testing, imposing travel restrictions for people in [Chinese coronavirus] risk areas and requiring residents to take nucleic acid tests for purchasing medicines to cure fever, cough and others after the city reported nine new local infections on Sunday and registered a total of 43 cases during the past week,” the state-run Global Times reported.
The requirement for nucleic acid testing will be applied to everyone in Beijing who buys cough or fever medication. Residents of the city’s three coronavirus “risk regions” have been “asked” not to leave Beijing.
The Global Times said the number of people incarcerated in a Beijing quarantine hotel is “surging” after a single asymptomatic case of Chinese coronavirus was detected in Chaoyang district. The people in the hotel must submit to daily nucleic acid tests and twice-daily checks of their body temperatures.
The Global Times quoted Chinese officials who praised their “mature” and highly-effective response to the “epidemic flare-ups” in Beijing, and local residents who proclaimed themselves to be delighted with the “well-planned” mass testing system. Nevertheless, a spokesman for the city government said the coronavirus situation in the national capital has become “severe and complex.”
Even as Beijing tightened travel restrictions and testing requirements, the first group of Olympic personnel arrived at the Winter Olympic Villages.
Another Global Times piece on Sunday reported delegations from over 20 countries have taken up residence in the villages, including athletes from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.
Security stand in front of people as they line up for compulsory nucleic acid tests to detect coronavirus at a mass testing site on January 24, 2022 in Beijing, China. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
All of them have supposedly been tested and found coronavirus-free, but 39 of the 2,586 Olympics-related personnel arriving at the Beijing airport since January 4 have tested positive for Chinese coronavirus.
“Some members of the Chinese mainland’s delegation have also entered the Winter Olympic Villages,” the article stated. Almost all of the foreign personnel, and all of the Chinese athletes and staff, were said to be “fully vaccinated and boosted.”
“Although Beijing has already detected dozens of positive cases among Olympic-related personnel having arrived in China, the athletes, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the international community remain confident in Beijing’s epidemic prevention system for the Winter Olympics,” the Global Times claimed.
The Chinese Communist paper quoted some Olympic athletes expressing total confidence in Beijing’s “closed loop” system for keeping Olympic areas isolated from the rest of the city.
“Once we get to the Winter Olympics in Beijing, I believe that’s the safest place to be,” said Austrian snowboarded Anna Gasser.
The Global Times quoted director Zhang Yimou, who is running the Olympic opening ceremony, saying that this year’s opening will “rely on high technology” instead of big crowds, running less than 100 minutes compared to the four-hour 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony and using only 3,000 performers instead of 15,000.
The Associated Press reported on Monday that two million residents of Beijing’s Fengtai district have been tested, plus an unspecified number of people living in six other districts. The entire city has ostensibly detected only 40 coronavirus infections since January 15, including six new cases reported on Sunday.