With a final early morning visit to an eerily empty Beijing airport before leaving the Winter Olympics, one comes full circle.

Masked travellers are greeted by an army of workers in full hazmat suits — white with blue stripes — with face shields or masks and goggles, a final, nondescript interaction after weeks inside the closed loop that kept Games participants separate from the general population, like a scene from Steven Soderbergh’s pandemic thriller “Contagion.”

These faceless personnel manage the airport, whether it’s checking in passengers for flights or transporting an athlete’s skis.