The Olympics Are Coming to China. So Is Omicron.
By Radnofsky, Bachman & Cohen, 12/22/21, Wall St. Journal

The Winter Olympics in China in six weeks have problems.
They’re in the winter. They’re in China. And they’re in 6 weeks.

The explosive spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant
of the coronavirus is quickly presenting one of the most
complicated possible Covid-19 scenarios for the 2022 Beijing
Games. Thousands of athletes from dozens of countries are on
course to head to the place where the pandemic began almost
exactly two years ago but which has yet to experience this wave.

Hundreds of those athletes could contract the variant by the
Feb. 4 opening ceremony, in spite of being vaccinated,
previously infected or both. Few will likely be seriously ill.
But their positive test results stand to upend training and
selection for the Games—and could prevent some of them leaving
at all for a Games built around a “Covid zero” approach to
snuffing out all traces of the virus.

What was a challenge for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo has
suddenly become a high-wire act for Beijing. A strategy meant
to intercept positive test results at a global event is now at
odds with many of the realities of the new variant facing
Olympians.

“Not just Olympians,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at
the Johns Hopkins U. Ctr for Health Security. “Everybody has
an appointment with Omicron.”

Many of the Euro & N American countries that dominate the
Winter Games are swimming in Omicron cases, & holiday
celebrations over the next two weeks are expected to
accelerate the variant’s spread.

The virus has already caused enough havoc in sports that the
National Hockey League decided on Tuesday to pull its players
from the Olympics. The league’s shredded schedule is a
potential harbinger of more Omicron fallout, particularly
after some players openly fretted about the risks of
quarantine in China.

IOC & Beijing organizers deflected questions about their
ability to handle Omicron by citing the latest iteration of
their virus protocols, which were crafted before the emergence
of a variant capable of reinfection that could yield large
numbers of breakthrough cases.

“The IOC is working with its Chinese partners to ensure safe
Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022,” an IOC spokesman said.
“We draw on the experiences from other international sports
events, including the successful Tokyo 2020 Games, and the
COVID-19 policy currently in effect in China.”

The variant hasn’t wreaked havoc in China yet. Beijing
reported a single case of Covid-19 on Sunday, according to
the Chinese state-affiliated media outlet Global Times.
New York City, one of the most highly vaccinated in the U.S.,
reported nearly 20,000 on the same day.

But beyond the NHL, the U.S. has already seen how quickly the
variant can spread thru a vaccinated, regularly tested sports
league, ensnaring large numbers of athletes & forcing the
postponement of games across the NFL & NBA as well. With many
athletes who tested positive remaining asymptomatic, the NFL
became the first major sports league to drop testing for
the vaccinated.

The problem for the Olympics is that China remains focused
on cases as the most important metric, at a time when the
Omicron variant is almost certain to increase the raw number
of infections around the world.

“I do think China needs to revisit its Covid-zero policy
because that’s not a sustainable approach,” Dr. Adalja said.
“It’s one that’s gonna be overcome by events pretty quickly.”

It’s also not clear if it can even hold off the virus until
then. China appears to be uniquely vulnerable against Omicron
because of its low levels of existing natural immunity among
over one billion people & its heavy reliance on a vaccine
that research suggests will be ineffective against this
extraordinarily contagious variant.

“They’ve been able to act very decisively, but this is gonna
be a whole different ballgame,” said Larry Brilliant, an
epidemiologist who put it another way on Twitter: “If there's
a tidal wave elsewhere, it will be a tsunami in China.”

The planned Olympic measures include building a closed loop
that people can't enter or exit without Chinese permission,
pre-departure and daily screening at the Games with highly
sensitive tests that can detect trace amounts of virus, and
potentially lengthy quarantines for anyone who tests
positive within the restrictive bubble.

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s chief med officer,
Jonathan Finnoff, acknowledged that winter athletes who test
positive in the coming weeks could find themselves unable
to go to Beijing because they can’t get past the departure
requirement to generate negative test results, even if
they’re not actually infectious.

Throughout the pandemic, professional sports leagues like
the NFL and NBA have generated rich data that has helped
scientists better understand Covid-19. Now, with football
season in full swing as the Delta variant spreads, WSJ’s
Shelby Holliday looks at what we’ve learned so far.

It’s possible for Olympians to test positive several weeks
before the Games, isolate for 10 days and feel healthy while
continuing to shed low levels of virus and test positive.
Scientists say they would not be threats to others in that
case. But there currently appears to be no exemption for
them in that case.

For now, the remaining Olympic preps are proceeding as
planned in the U.S. and other juggernaut countries, like
The Netherlands, where speedskaters are expected to
continue practicing through a national lockdown.

The U.S. Olympic training centers, where many top contenders
eat, sleep and train, remain open. U.S. Figure Skating hasn't
announced changes to its national championships in Nashville
in early January, for which tickets have been sold and no
sequestration for skaters had been planned. Dr. Finnoff said
he wasn't imposing requirements on the skating championships,
which aren't a USOPC-run event, and he didn't imagine closing
or limiting capacity at training centers before the Olympics.

“We have a highly vaccinated population, both from a staff
standpoint and an athlete standpoint,” he said. “We’re coming
into a challenging time with Omicron. But I’m feeling actually
very confident.”

Beijing’s no-tolerance infectious-disease controls aren’t
just a logistical fear for competition. Many of the countries
participating in the Winter Olympics are sending delegations
in the face of political objections that include fears for
athlete safety in China. Now they face an increased probability
that their athletes will be placed under Chinese restrictions
due to a positive result on a sensitive PCR test.

“If you’re a statistician rolling the dice,” Dr. Finnoff said,
“it would be incredibly unlikely that nobody within our
delegation that’s quite sizable tested positive.”

The USOPC has secured commitments about the welfare of
athletes placed in isolation, including their access to
video conferencing while they are in identifiable hotels,
he said. Asymptomatic people in quarantine will have daily
opportunities to take the test in Beijing, increasing their
chances of release, and vaccination could help them secure
a negative result early.

Crucially, people who can’t pass the test after 10 days but
are otherwise healthy may be able to seek release from an
advisory panel that includes both Chinese and international
experts, Dr. Finnoff said.

“We’ve received significant reassurance that that medical
expert group will be empowered to help make the right
decision,” he said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-olympics-omicron-covid-11640177918
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