![]() France has lost more than 133,000 lives to the virus and counted more than 20 million infections. Even the kiss to both cheeks, the traditional French greeting that had become repellent to many, has made a comeback of sorts. It swept through so many homes that more people are feeling that the worst may now be behind them. There have been multiple waves, the most recent being the fast-spreading omicron variant. The vast majority of French adults are vaccinated. In France, where I'm based, the coronavirus no longer inspires the same levels of fear for many that it did in the pandemic's early days. So all fingers and toes are crossed for a negative that would trigger a return to the relative freedom of the “Closed Loop." That touchy-feely moniker is actually a ring-fence of stringent restrictions sealing off the Winter Games - behind high walls, police patrols and thickets of security cameras - from the rest of China and its people who, understandably, want potential virus-carriers kept firmly at bay. The ambulance is parked outside the cubicle, ready to go. There were 32 athletes in isolation as of Tuesday this week, with 50 others having been discharged. That's an unappetizing prospect given the complaints about lack of comfort and inedible food from quarantined athletes who've endured them. Most don't even notice the person inside, confined until the result of another test determines his fate.Ī positive could mean a swift transfer by ambulance to an isolation “hotel" for an indefinite stay. #HUNTED TRACKED CROSSWORD WINDOWS#I shove them next to the electric socket, so I can power up my laptop and stay connected via Wi-Fi to the Olympic world that I can see, but am temporarily no longer welcome in, through two slit windows in the door. There's a small electric heater to take the sting out of the cold seeping through the thin white metal walls. The cubicle, part of a Lego-like clump of nondescript pre-fabs outside the main Olympic press center, is roughly the size of a double bed but less welcoming. Lurking at the back of my throat are infinitesimal remnants of virus DNA that hitched along for the ride, and which the Olympic testers in top-to-toe hazmat suits are annoyingly adept at digging out with their cotton swabs.Īnd that's how I ended up back here, in Isolation Room 2. 1 - hunted, tracked, isolated and zapped with no-nonsense rigor and militaristic zeal. Because here the coronavirus is Public Enemy No. Like laundering with gasoline or hiking naked, traveling three weeks after a bout of COVID-19 to cover the Winter Olympics in China for The Associated Press is proving to have been not the brightest of ideas. #HUNTED TRACKED CROSSWORD CODE#dialing code when the Chinese health official on the line is, in fact, calling from Beijing and bearing bad news. The number is immediately recognizable because it's so strange: a U.S. BEIJING (AP) - The phone call comes in the early afternoon, six hours or so after the mandatory morning test. ![]()
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