Keeping the Olympics Covid-free: life inside Beijing’s ‘closed loop’ bubble

Before Zhang Hua goes down for breakfast, he puts on a mask and rubber gloves. He leaves his hotel room, and walks through halls while keeping a safe distance from others. Then he boards a specially commissioned bus driven along dedicated lanes to his job assisting foreign broadcasters preparing for the Winter Olympics.

In the media centre he takes his daily Covid test, and might eat a meal delivered by a robot. Depending on where he’s staying, Zhang may be allowed to visit his hotel gym later, or go to another hotel’s restaurant, but otherwise this is the only journey he can take.

This is life inside one of the “closed loop” bubbles set up by China in an attempt to keep the Winter Olympics, which are due to begin on 4 February, Covid free. Zhang, who used a pseudonym, has been inside a bubble since 21 January.

“With the buses, going out is easy,” he told the Guardian. “It [the loop] doesn’t affect how we work much but it affects our lives, especially meals, and life is not as free as outside the loop.”

Throughout the pandemic, China’s government has maintained with large success a “zero Covid” strategy, assisted by strict border controls.

As recently as a few months ago, weeks would go by with no community cases, and outbreaks were swiftly brought under control. But then Omicron arrived.

Case numbers are low relative to the rest of the world but have been found in multiple provinces and cities, including Beijing. The closed loop system is now tasked not only with keeping the Games as Covid-free as possible but also ensuring that the influx of about 11,000 foreign athletes, officials, employees and guests, doesn’t spark a wider outbreak China can’t control.

The “closed loop” system designed for the Games consists of