Beijing Winter Olympic teams register 1st case of COVID-19

Beijing Winter Olympics reported the first case of COVID-19 among national team members that entered China on Sunday.

Beijing Winter Olympics reported the first case of COVID-19 among national team members that entered China on Sunday. The organizing committee said on Monday that the case was identified from PCR tests of 529 Olympic-related people at an airport in Beijing the previous day, reported NHK World.

While the committee did not disclose which team the athlete or official belongs to, it revealed that three people who were not members of a team also tested positive at the airport. The committee also said that more than 38,000 tests were conducted on Sunday inside the so-called bubble separating Games-related personnel from the public. Two infections were confirmed from among those tests, reported NHK World.

From January 4 through Sunday, 43 coronavirus cases were found at the airport and 35 inside the Olympics bubble. Meanwhile, the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 Organizing Committee (BOCOG) announced that a total of 72 confirmed positive tests for COVID-19 have been reported related to the games between January 4 and 22.

The number of cases reflects that the "Zero-COVID policy" of China has failed to contain coronavirus. Moreover, the COVID-19 Omicron variant has been cropping up across China in recent days, including in major port cities like Dalian and Tianjin.

Also, as the rest of the world learns to live with the virus, economists say China's zero-tolerance strategy is likely to do more bad than good in 2022, Omicron could deal a blow to successfully organize Winter Olympics. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)