Omicron and the Winter Olympics – is China’s zero-Covid strategy up to the challenges?

Name: Covid-19 cases during Beijing Winter Olympics 'highly probable': health officials
Uploaded: 2021-12-26T23:00:34.000Z
Duration: 1 min 2 s
Description: Covid-19 cases during Beijing Winter Olympics 'highly probable': health officials

Health authorities have been waging a war to stamp out Delta variant hotspots throughout the country

The national defences could face an even tougher test in the new strain of the coronavirus sweeping the world

Reading Time:5 minutes

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The arrival of the Winter Games means an easing in some of the border restrictions that have shielded the country from an onslaught of imported cases. Photo: Reuters

Zhuang Pinghui

Published: 7:00am, 27 Dec 2021Updated: 2:25pm, 27 Dec 2021

An all-out battle to eliminate hotspots has been waged for months. Each time the Delta variant of the coronavirus has escaped into the community in China, authorities have moved in hard and fast to cut the chain of transmission.

Communities have been shut down, mass testing rolled out and contacts traced. The measures add up to the country’s zero-Covid strategy, an epidemiological full-court press that has been used time and again, from Guangzhou in the south to Inner Mongolia in the north.

In most cases, the outbreaks have been contained within a month but with Omicron, a more transmissible variant, sweeping the globe and the Beijing Winter Olympics just weeks away, all eyes are on whether this will continue to be the case.

So far China has reported nine Covid-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant, including two who were infected by a man returning from Canada. The National Health Commission has pledged tougher controls at the borders in land, sea and customs checkpoints, with measures including more frequent testing and extended quarantine if imported cases are found in quarantine.

Experts say China is at a greater risk of Omicron outbreaks and, although the zero-Covid approach might still work against the new variant, gaps need to be plugged and resources allocated to meet the greater challenge.

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Covid-19 cases during Beijing Winter Olympics 'highly probable': health officials

The arrival of the Winter Games means an easing in some of the border restrictions that have shielded the country from an onslaught of imported cases. Thousands of athletes and delegates will be able to enter China without quarantine if they have been fully inoculated. Booster doses are encouraged but not required.

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