China will host the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. (Represent)
Beijing:
On Tuesday, China warned that the rapidly spreading Covid-19 variant of Omicron would pose challenges in hosting the Winter Olympics next February in Beijing.
Although China has largely eradicated the coronavirus within its borders through rapid lockdown and travel restrictions, recurrent domestic outbreaks associated with the Delta variant have caused Authorities must be on high alert.
“I think it will inevitably lead to challenges related to prevention and control,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, adding that Beijing “appreciates South Africa’s efforts in this regard.” providing timely information” about this variant.
“But China has a lot of experience in dealing with Covid-19,” Zhao added. “I have no doubt that the Winter Olympics will proceed smoothly.”
China is determined to run a smooth Covid-19-free Olympics, which will be a decisive propaganda victory for Beijing’s zero-tolerance strategy against Covid.
Thousands of athletes, media and participants from abroad were asked to enter a strict “closed-loop” bubble.
Organizers last month acknowledged that the virus would be the “biggest challenge” in hosting the Olympics.
But health authorities say they have the means to deal with the new variant.
“China has done a good job of technical preparation” for the Omicron variant, said Xu Wenbo, head of the virus control institute at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We have multiple directions of technical research, including preliminary technical studies on inactivated vaccines, protein-based vaccines and vector-based vaccines,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.
According to health authorities, more than 1.1 billion people have been fully immunized against the coronavirus as of Monday.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
