China has been holding a testing program for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics in a bid to gauge how the country can take steps to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading during the major sports events.
Utilizing state-of-the-art technologies, the organizer continually monitors venue staff's temperatures and checks to make sure journalists can work remotely.
The 10-day test run is scheduled to be held through Saturday at five of the Feb. 4 to 20 Winter Games venues, where skating, curling and other on-ice matches took place.
At a venue for ice hockey, around 1,000 staff members had wireless chip-type thermometers placed under their arms and other parts of the body. The data was sent to the management center via smartphone.
All the staff members have already received a coronavirus vaccine, according to the organizer.
Spectators have been allowed to enter some venues, but they have been prohibited from sitting side-by-side. Before the entry, they have also been required to present their health code on a smartphone, which can confirm whether they have a high risk of infection.
The system, launched by the Chinese government in early 2020, assigns citizens multicolor QR codes to register where they went and whether they had contact with infected patients.
With a green light shown on their smartphones, they are permitted onto trains and expressways and into shops, restaurants and office buildings.
An official of the organizer said, "After the test program, we will analyze what is not enough while hearing opinions from the International Olympics Committee."
Related coverage:
World won't accept U.S.-led boycott of Beijing Winter Games: China
U.S. says Beijing Olympics boycott with allies may be on agenda
