COVID-19: China battles omicron wave weeks before Beijing Olympics

China has been facing the threat of rising COVID-19 cases, weeks ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics slated to commence on February 4.

The wave has been attributed to the more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus. The country is responding to the outbreak by doubling down on its ‘zero-tolerance’ COVID-19 policy. 

Cities across China are applying harsher restrictions to try to contain fresh outbreaks of COVID-19, with Tianjin battling the extremely contagious omicron strain which has been confirmed to have been spread locally in two other provinces.  

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Tianjin, the city only an hour away from the capital where the Olympics are scheduled to take place, is on high alert, but it hasn’t imposed a complete lockdown so far, reported AP.

Restrictions in the city include sealing off residential communities, cancelling flights, and suspending high-speed train service. But stricter lockdowns and limitations might not be implemented in Tianjin, as opposed to several other cities in China. 

The 14-million-strong port city near capital Beijing, began mass testing on Sunday.

Tianjin’s proximity to Beijing makes the timing particularly fraught. During the Tokyo Olympics in July, Japan saw a widespread outbreak driven by the delta variant.

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Since the beginning of the pandemic, China’s policies to contain the spread of the virus have been stern. The city of Wuhan, where the virus was first discovered, was sealed off along with parts of Hubei in January 2020. 

The vaccination rate now tops 85%.

Whether Beijing’ s safeguards will hold up in face of the omicron variant is a crucial question.

“I think it truly is a critical juncture for China. Can it stave off omicron?” said Dali Yang, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Chicago.

Beijing’s Olympic bubble is even stricter than Tokyo’s, which was mostly effective in stopping transmission, said Kenji Shibuya, research director at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research and a public health expert.

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Beijing faces a potentially bigger risk because the more contagious omicron variant has shown itself adept at evading vaccines.

The lack of widespread spread of the virus also means the people in China are largely protected by the vaccine and not by the antibodies provided by earlier infections, Dr Vineeta Bal, a top Indian immunologist, said. 

“The Olympics would be the first trial,” said Bal. Omicron “can easily travel in China.”

Unlike the Tokyo Olympics bubble, there will be no contact between those inside and the outside world.

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Officials, athletes, staff and journalists will travel between hotels and competition venues on specially designated vehicles in what is described as a closed-loop system. Chinese will have to quarantine for three weeks upon leaving the bubble.

“The world is turning its eyes to China, and China is ready,” the Chinese president and leader of the ruling Communist Party, Xi Jinping, said during an inspection tour of competition venues last week.

The country recorded 124 domestically transmitted cases on Thursday, including 76 in Henan province and 41 in Tianjin. 

(With inputs from Associated Press)