Inside Beijing's 'closed loop' Olympic Games

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Caption: A man poses Monday in a hazmat suit with the sentence 'Welcome to Beijing' written on it in Yanqing, a district in China that is to host the alpine skiing and sliding venues for the 2022 Olympic Games. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)

In 2015, Beijing won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Since then, COVID-19, deteriorating relations with the West, allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and a resulting diplomatic boycott put a damper on the Games.
Yet China plowed forward, promising to put on a spectacular show while keeping out COVID-19, through the use of tight, non-negotiable safety measures.
Today, we're talking to The National's Adrienne Arsenault from inside the rigid operation created to keep Beijing's 21 million residents safe from COVID-19 — and to keep the world's athletes, journalists and Winter Olympics' staff fenced in.
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