Tickets for the Beijing Winter Olympics Games will not be sold to the public and only selected spectators will be invited to attend on supervised trips, event organisers said on Monday. The Games’ organising committee had previously said that tickets would be available to domestic buyers but not to overseas fans. “Due to the complexity of pandemic control and prevention, in order to ensure the safety of the Olympics-related personnel and audience, we will adjust our plan to organising viewers to watch the Games,” the committee said on Monday. “Attendees will need to strictly follow all Covid-19 prevention requirements.” The announcement comes after the discovery on the weekend of a person in Beijing infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. With less than three weeks to go until the opening of the Games, a woman from Haidian district tested positive after having a sore throat and fever. Local authorities have since tracked her movements, placed restrictions in part of the city and conducted mass screening, racing to keep transmissions under control before the international sporting event and the Lunar New Year. On Saturday, Xu Hejian, a spokesman for the Beijing municipal government, said all agencies had to ensure the safety of the capital and the Olympics. Don’t eat the meat in China, doping agency warns Olympic athletes Beijing authorities have also taken a series of preventive measures for the Games, pursuing a zero-tolerance strategy on Covid-19 to limit the pandemic’s potential impact. In early January, Beijing created a “bubble” around Games venues , with thousands of Games-related staff, volunteers, cleaners, cooks and bus drivers confined to the “closed-loop” area with no direct physical contact with the outside world. A closed-loop transport system between venues has also been set up. Beijing police have warned the public not to approach the vehicles or knock on the window – even in the event of an accident. All Games-related personnel would be tested daily and their health closely monitored, the committee said in its official pandemic prevention brochure.
