Dozens of athletes placed in quarantine at the Beijing Winter Olympics to curb the spread of COVID-19 revealed the misery they went through including being pulled out of bed at 3am and given sad food in a cramped quarantine room, MailOnline newspaper reported yesterday.
In spite of the global pandemic, Beijing decided to try and have a COVID-19 free Winter Olympics. To do so, they had to enforce strict rules like each team must be isolated and must take screening tests daily. Anyone who tested positive will be immediately dragged into quarantine locations.
Russian athlete Valeria Vasnetsova claimed that she was served food that was unfit to be eaten and the same meal was given three times a day for five consecutive days.
Belgian skeleton racer Kim Meylemans broke down in tears in an Instagram video, explaining how she was scared and confused about the COVID-19 protocols in Beijing.
Meylemans tested positive for the virus when she arrived, but later tested negative. So, she thought she was being transported to the Olympic Village in Yanqing, but she was instead taken by an ambulance to another isolation destination.
The head of the German contingent Dirk Schimmelpfennig also also commented on the situation which he considered unacceptable for his athletes. Schimmelpfennig said the quarantine rooms were too narrow and not clean enough, while the PCR tests that athletes had to undergo were not performed.
Polish athlete Natalia Maliszewska said she repeatedly moved in and out of quarantine for several days due to conflicting Covid-19 test results. According to her, the experience caused her trauma and she was crying and kept crying.
She said 'something in me died' after she was recalled to isolation for testing positive again.
In one incident on a scary night, she said, officers dragged her out of bed at 3am (local time) to take her back to the athletes village after deciding she was free of Covid-19.
However, they later admitted to having made a mistake and took her back to the quarantine room.
"I was sitting in the ambulance. It was 3 o'clock in the morning. I cried like crazy because I didn't know what was going on. I don't feel safe at all," said the 26-year-old athlete.
Currently, there are 387 people from the group of athletes placed in Covid-19 isolation in China.
Skating athlete from the United States, Vincent Zhou was among those who were positive the Covid-19 rival yesterday was taken to quarantine. Austrian snowboarder Sabine Schöffmann was also found positive for the coronavirus.
Finnish ice hockey team captain Jukka Jalonen said last Sunday that China had violated human rights involving one of its star players. This is because the player remains quarantined even though the team doctor has allowed him to play.
Marko Anttila was locked up in an isolation facility after testing positive for the Covid-19 virus 18 days ago, Jalonen said, and remained in isolation even though he is was free of symptoms.
Under Chinese strict regulations, people can only leave the isolation location after getting a negative result of two PCR tests performed within a 24 -hour interval.
