DThe organizers of the Beijing Winter Olympics have lowered the CT value above which an athlete’s PCR test for the corona virus is considered negative from 40 to 35. The organizing committee for the games beginning on February 4 announced on Sunday evening that the regulation would apply immediately. In addition to the possibility of entering the country without a hotel quarantine, the participants experience another preferential treatment: China’s citizens are not told which CT value their tests must have in order for them to be considered negative.
However, participants in the games whose test result is between 35 and the previous threshold of 40 will be treated as people who are considered “close contacts” of a third party who has tested positive for the corona virus. These close contacts must also go into isolation, but not in a quarantine hotel set up for this purpose, but in their accommodation. They must eat their own food and go to their competition site or workplace alone in separate vehicles. Most importantly, the number of mandatory PCR tests will be doubled to two tests a day. Athletes must also undergo another PCR test six hours before their competition.
The period during which participants with a CT value between 35 and 40 are treated like close contacts of a person who has tested positive should be seven days. Anyone who tests positive in China with a CT value below 35 can leave quarantine if they have two negative tests on two consecutive days or test results with a CT value on three consecutive days after ten days in quarantine isolation without other symptoms greater than 35. In both cases, those affected are then treated as close contacts.
On Sunday, the first athlete who had traveled to the games tested positive. With the total of six positive tests on Sunday, the number of positive PCR tests among the 377,977 samples taken during the games up to and including Sunday is now 78 CT value 40 came up because in Europe and North America there are sometimes significantly lower values, after which a PCR test is considered negative. All persons traveling for the Games must provide two negative PCR tests in their home country within 96 hours prior to departure.