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Athletes Notice Incredibly Creepy People as They Wander Communist China's Olympic Village

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The Winter Olympics are underway in Beijing, but they do not look like the international celebration many have come to expect from the quadrennial event.

Mari Saito, a Reuters reporter who is inside the Olympic “bubble,” wrote about the eerie conditions inside.

He described the situation as “EXTREMELY dystopian.”

In one video posted to Twitter, Saito showed a bartender in a full PPE suit apparently preparing a cocktail for a customer.

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For athletes looking to unwind after a long day of training or competing, a bartender wearing a full hazmat suit is probably not the first sight they wanted to see.

According to Reuters, this particular video was taken at the Nanshanli Condotel, a hotel where many Olympic workers and journalists are staying. But the scene is similar in most venues being utilized for the Olympics.

Saito said the walls and floors of the hotel are cleaned so often that the surfaces are slippery and difficult to walk on.

In another disturbing video, Saito showed a robot spraying disinfectant slowly approaching him.

Throughout the pandemic, China has implemented what it calls a “zero COVID” strategy, Reuters reported. This includes “aggressively isolating and tracing coronavirus cases to keep its official exposure low.”

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For the Olympics, the communist country waived its draconian border rules for approximately 11,000 athletes and guests, the Daily Mail reported. They are allowed to enter the country without being subject to the usual quarantine, but only if they have been fully vaccinated.

With that said, those 11,000 people must stay in a “closed loop” throughout the duration of the Winter Games, which end on Feb. 20. The Daily Mail reported this loop is “designed to almost totally cut them off from the outside world to stop the virus spreading.”

Approximately 20,000 volunteers from China are helping to put on the event, and they too are forced to stay in isolation.

That confinement is being taken to extremes in Beijing.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Belgian skeleton athlete Kim Meylemans spent 80 hours in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19.

She subsequently tested negative multiple times, seemingly proving the first test had been a false positive, and officials told her she could leave on Wednesday to go to what she thought would be the Olympic Village.

Instead, an emergency vehicle took her to another isolation center, Yahoo reported.

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Meylemans posted a video explaining the situation, and she was clearly distressed.

“I am supposed to stay here for seven more days with two PCR [tests] per day and no contact with anybody else,” she said. “I am allowed to slide alone. We are not even sure I will ever be allowed to return to the Village, and obviously this is very hard for me, so I ask you all to give me some time to consider my next steps.”

On Thursday, Meylemans was finally allowed to return to the Olympic Village, the New York Post reported.

The draconian mandates in Beijing clearly have the potential to cause mental harm to athletes, but as of now, event organizers do not seem to care.

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Grant is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has five years of writing experience with various outlets and enjoys covering politics and sports.
Grant is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor's degree in journalism. He has five years of writing experience with various outlets and enjoys covering politics and sports.




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