Athletes and coaches are testing positive at a higher rate than others Arriving at the Beijing Olympics
(BEIJING) – Athletes and team officials are testing positive for COVID-19 at a much higher rate than others traveling to China for the Beijing Olympics, organizers said today. Tuesday.
Data issued by the local organizers showed 11 positive COVID-19 test results among the 379 athletes and officials who attended Monday’s competition. They have been placed in quarantine hotels to limit the spread of infection and may miss their events.
The positive test rate was 2.9% for athletes and officials compared with 0.66% for Olympic “stakeholders”, a group that includes workers and the media, during the same period. period. There are already 1,059 people in that category.
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During the three-day period from Saturday to Monday, the positivity rate of athletes and officials was 40% higher than that of other Olympic arrivals.
This ratio has been confirmed in PCR and other follow-up tests on tens of thousands of people at the Beijing Olympics who will live, work and train in closed communities separate from the public. they. The Chinese government is pursuing a uncompromising public health strategy.
On Monday, the rate of infection from tests for those already in the Olympic bubble was 100 times higher in athletes and officials than in workers. Five of the 3,103 tests from the athlete-official group were positive compared with just one out of the more than 60,000 tests daily from “stakeholders”.
A total of 200 positive tests for COVID-19 have now been recorded at the Olympics as of January 23. Of those 200, 67 are athletes and officials. “Stakeholders” is 133.
Among the athletes who tested positive in Beijing was Hong Kong skier Audrey King, who was from a training camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina. King told the South China Morning Post she is symptom-free and upbeat while skiing in the women’s slalom on February 9.
The most senior athlete representative at the International Olympic Committee, two-time Olympic hockey medalist Emma Terho, is also staying in an isolated hotel after testing positive on arrival.
“Although this is not the start I envisioned, I am pleased to see that the protocols laid out by Beijing 2022 are working well,” said Terho, an IOC member from Finland who sits on the steering committee. Olympic performance, written on Her Instagram account.
