COVID-19 cases among Olympic athletes, personnel top 100 in past four days

China has reported 119 COVID-19 cases in participants for the Beijing Winter Olympics — set to begin at the end of the week — in the past four days.

Organizers said most of the positive tests, including 37 on Sunday and 34 on Saturday, came from people who tested following their arrival at the airport, Reuters reported. 

Valeria Vasnetsova, an athlete from Russia, was one of three athletes from the country to test positive for the virus on Monday, Reuters added.

“Unfortunately, my Olympic dream will remain just a dream,” Vasnetsova said in a social media post. “Maybe one day I will find the strength to rise again but it will be a completely different story.”

Emma Terho, the head of the International Olympic Committee’s athletes commission, also tested positive and said she was isolating, according to the news service.

“Even though this is not the start I envisaged, I was happy to see the protocols that Beijing 2022 has put in place are working well,” Terho said in a social media post. 

“You’re like just so stressed about making sure you’re as safe as you can be,” American luger Chris Mazdzer also said, according to Reuters. “Yet at the same time, there’s no way to be 100 percent safe.

“There have been a lot of athletes that are testing positive right now and it’s scary because you put in four years since the last Games and for all of that to go to waste in the last week, last couple of days, it would be a tragedy,” he added.

Meanwhile, Beijing officials announced on Sunday that they had sealed off residential communities where two COVID-19 cases were found in an effort to contain the spread of the virus.

Once at the games, participants will be in a “closed loop,” meaning they will be isolated from the general public. Participants’ hotels are surrounded by temporary walls, and they will be transported directly to Olympic venues in official vehicles.