The term “closed-loop management” (闭环管理) or “closed-loop system” made headlines this month after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Beijing organizers released a joint statement on COVID-19 measures during the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in China in February and March of 2022.
Although a more detailed ‘playbook’ will be released later in October (and another one in December), the latest announcement clarifies that there will be strict COVID-19 countermeasures for Beijing 2022, where a ‘biosecure bubble’ will be established for all participants.
For one, spectators from outside of mainland China will not be allowed to attend. Chinese residents can purchase tickets for the Olympics as long as they follow the protocols, which will be further specified later on.
Although full vaccination is strongly encouraged, it is not a precondition to participation for athletes. Those who are not fully vaccinated, however, will have to undergo a 21-day quarantine upon arrival. All participants will be subjected to daily COVID-19 testing.
Fully vaccinated athletes and Games participants will enter the so-called closed-loop management system upon arrival.
This basically means that starting from two weeks before the Opening Ceremony, all participants – from athletes to official delegations and accredited media – will be strictly confined to designated areas.
The closed-loop management system
The closed-loop management system for the Olympics means that all participants will only be allowed to move between Games-related venues for their training, catering, accommodation, etc. They will do so through a dedicated Games transport system.
This also means that participants definitely will not be allowed to leave their designated areas – no dumplings in the hutongs and no beers at Bar Street!
For many Chinese residents, such a closed-loop management system is not new. After the initial lockdown phase in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, the ‘Covid-19 closed-loop management’ (新冠疫情闭环管理) has been applied to various areas when there were new local cases of COVID-19.
In early August of 2021, for example, there was a closed-loop management system for residential areas in Zhengzhou after local COVID-19 cases. In late August this year, residential areas in Songjiang district in Shanghai were also closed off in the same way. The same measures were implemented in the city of Xiamen in September of 2021 after 13 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in the region.
The most important thing the closed-loop approach does is creating a barrier between an ‘inside’ community and the ‘outside’ world, with very strict checks on who can enter and exit the area, and usually a ban on group gatherings within the area.
Residents sometimes get an access card to enter/exit the district, but any outsiders, including couriers and delivery staff, are not allowed inside the closed surroundings.
The closed-loop measure is not the same as a lockdown (“封城”) like the one in Wuhan. The main goal is of the closed-loop ‘bubble’ approach is to limit and reduce the flow of people and their movements within an area in order to cut off the source of infection as soon as possible.
In previous bubble areas, residents would also get a “red” code in their health app, which is required at digital check-ins to assess people’s COVID-19 risk status. Those with a red code will not be allowed access and are required to return home.
The ‘bubble operation’ for the Winter Olympics will start on January 23, 2022, and will be implemented until the end of the Winter Paralympic Games. The secure Olympic environment does not just protect Games participants from getting COVID-19 through an outside source, it also prevents possible COVID-19 cases from spreading beyond the Olympic area and limits the risks of infections within the Games bubble.
The Winter Olympics 2022 will take place in Beijing central, Yanqing District, and in Zhangjiakou in Hebei.
On social media site Weibo, the hashtag “Beijing Winter Olympic Games Will Implement Closed-loop Management” (#北京冬奥会将实施闭环管理#) received 15 million views and thousands of comments, with many supporting the strict measures – arguing that Chinese locals also need to be protected from foreigners who come from countries where preventive, protective or containment Covid-19 measures are not actively implemented.
The hashtag also triggered some anti-American sentiments, with some netizens suggesting that American athletes should be quarantined for a longer time, or should even stay in their own separate U.S. Olympic bubble. But those kinds of sentiments do not resonate with the official slogan of Beijing 2022, which stresses the idea of standing side by side: “Together for a shared future.”
By Manya Koetse
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