A month before 2022 Winter Games, Beijing enacts COVID 'closed loop'

With a month to go before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics organisers have begun a "closed loop" operation to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak among Games participants from leaking into China's general public. The 2022 Games, which open on Feb. 4, are set to take place as the world grapples with the highly transmissable Omicron variant, although China, which has a zero-tolerance COVID policy, has reported just a handful of Omicron cases. Organisers said on Wednesday that the "closed loop" bubble, in which participants can only leave if they are exiting the country or undergo quarantine, had been activated as planned on Tuesday, the same day that President Xi Jinping toured several Games facilities. Xi expressed "firm confidence" that Games staff "will continue to do a good job in all preparations to ensure the complete success of the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics," state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday. Restrictions at Games venues in Beijing and Zhangjiakou in neighbouring Hebei province will be much tighter than those during last summer's Tokyo Olympics. On Tuesday, the closed loop arrivals and departures section at Beijing Capital International Airport handled its first flight of passengers from Tokyo's Narita, the Civil Aviation News of China reported. The loop restricts Games-related personnel to certain zones in and around Olympics venues to avoid any contact and risk of transmission with the local population. Overseas participants will fly directly into and out of the closed loop.<br/>