No room for loopholes in Beijing’s Olympic Covid response
Heading for a flight out of Oslo airport on Monday, I trailed through passport control right behind the Norwegian Winter Olympics team on their way to Beijing, their brand new ski boots clicking around their shoulders. “It’s a very different year this year,” one cross country skier told me. That’s an understatement: spectators are banned, the slopes are covered in fake snow and the Olympic village is built like a zero Covid fortress where athletes will be cooked for and served by robots to prevent Covid contamination.
Two of the Norwegian cross-country skiing team have already tested positive, which means they’ll have to isolate until the eve of the Olympics. Meanwhile, 11 others in the Olympic Village have also got Covid. Those inside the Olympic “closed loop” bio-bubble have to download the mandatory “My 2022” app, which compels users to submit daily health status reports. The Toronto-based organization Citizen Lab flagged several issues with the app, concluding that it had serious privacy issues which meant users’ file transfers and chats could be monitored. The app also allows people to flag “politically sensitive” content such as mentions of Xinjiang or Tibet.
Chinese state media outlets are hailing the Beijing Olympics system, including the app, as a “chance for Western media to learn China’s anti-epidemic success.”
"After entering China, I saw the Chinese staff in protective clothing on the runway of Beijing Capital International Airport," a Japanese journalist told the state-run Global Times. “Beijing's system on epidemic control makes me feel reassured.”