REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: The “Olympic closed loop” is a collection of bubbles. All fenced in with physical barriers keeping all of us separate from the rest of China. Via MaggieRulli.
Out of the 441 Olympic delegates in China, eight are in isolation, including Team USA bobsledder Elana Meyers who tested positive but asymptomatic and is now isolated from her son with Down Syndrome.The bubble starts the second you get off the airplane, and there’s no missing it. Dozens of people in hazmat suits are standing outside the airplane doors. Even theWe’re quickly escorted to the first of many lines, and get the first of many personalized QR codes.
The welcome to China experience is a quick introduction to the culture of these games. Thousands of people from all over the world are coming to a country where no one dares to break the rules. And there are a lot of rules: Don’t roll down your window in the car, no shouting at events, remember to record your daily temperature into the tracking app.ABC News' Maggie Rulli and team pose with Olympic mascots, after arriving in Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
The “Olympic closed loop” is a collection of bubbles. All fenced in with physical barriers keeping all of us separate from the rest of China. It’s likely the most ambitious bubble system ever created and it’s a feat to witness up close. One of the bubbles is more than one hundred miles from Beijing up in the mountain zone. There are dedicated lanes and parts of an entire highway have been shut down so that visitors can travel along in a moving bubble up to the mountains.
The hardest thing to wrap your mind around are the numbers. At any given time there are dozens of active cases in Beijing. As the country is still chasing zero Covid, a handful of cases feels like an outbreak. But the numbers are a minuscule fraction of the city's 21 million people -- roughly .0000038%. It is China’s crackdown to these numbers that is felt so harshly here inside the bubble. A zero Covid strategy that leaves athletes in a constant state of fear over testing positive.
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