Days ahead of Beijing Olympics, China has reported 34 Covid-19 cases among Olympics related personnel. Of the total infections, 23 cases have been reported among new airport arrivals and 11 have been reported among people who are already in a closed bubble that separates event personnel from the general public. Among those who have tested positive, Poland’s short tracker Natalia Maliszewska is the latest athlete to test positive, taking the total count of Covid positive athletes and team officials to 13.
In the official statement issued by the organizing committee, Beijing Games’s medical chief Brian McCloskey has stated that China is going through the peak period of arrival of people and therefore, more cases are expected to come to light in the upcoming days.
In addition to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases, China has also been receiving flak for its Covid-Zero policy, not just from the residents of China who are facing constant lockdowns, frequent testing and strict measures but also economists. Sharing details of China’s GDP growth, IMF’s Gita Gopinath tweeted that China’s growth is losing steam with a stop-and-go pattern, reflecting COVID lockdowns, weakness in the real estate sector, and weaker-than-expected consumption. We foresee 4.8% in 2022.”
Meanwhile, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned, “China is still using a zero-COVID policy. But what COVID is teaching all of us is that a highly transmissible variant may be much more difficult to contain without a dramatic impact on the economy.”
