China on Tuesday said it expects to hold the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February “smoothly” and on schedule despite challenges arising as a result of the new Omicron coronavirus variant.
“I believe it will definitely pose some challenge to our efforts to prevent and control the virus, but as China has experience in preventing and controlling the coronavirus, I fully believe that China will be able to host the Winter Olympics as scheduled, smoothly and successfully,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian said at the daily ministry briefing on Tuesday.
China is set to hold the Games between 4 - 20 February in Beijing, and neighbouring Hebei without foreign spectators.
{{/usCountry}}China is set to hold the Games between 4 - 20 February in Beijing, and neighbouring Hebei without foreign spectators.
{{/usCountry}}As per the arrangements, all athletes and related personnel will remain in a “closed-loop” around the venues in three separate clusters, and will be subject to daily testing for Covid-19.
China has largely controlled the Covid-19 pandemic within its borders through travel restrictions, snap lockdowns and large-scale testing but recurrent domestic outbreaks, lately linked to the Delta variant, have kept authorities on alert.
China has also vaccinated the majority of its citizens.
More than 1.1 billion people in China had completed their vaccination against Covid-19 as of Monday, a spokesperson with the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Tuesday.
Nearly 2.5 billion vaccine jabs had been administered, Mi Feng, NHC spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“China has already done a good job of technical preparations” for the Omicron variant, said Xu Wenbo, head of the virus control institute at China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“We have many lines of technical research, including preliminary technical research into deactivated vaccines, protein-based vaccines and vector-based vaccines,” he said at the NHC briefing on Tuesday.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned the Omicron variant, which has already been confirmed in Europe, Canada, Israel and Hong Kong, may not only spread quicker, but could also evade immunity from previous infections and vaccines.
“Given mutations that may confer immune escape potential and possibly transmissibility advantage, the likelihood of potential further spread of Omicron at the global level is high,” the WHO said in its risk assessment on Monday, in a technical brief to its 194 member states.