Omicron has broken through Beijing’s covid-free fortifications

Beijing identified its first locally-transmitted case of the omicron variant on Saturday (Jan. 15), prompting swift action from a city that has spent months fortifying itself against a raging pandemic as it invites an infected world into its borders for the Winter Olympics, set to begin on Feb. 4. Within a day, Chinese authorities had swept into—and sealed off—the infected person’s workplace and residential compound, tested more than 2,400 people the person may have come into contact with. The government is aiming for a “green, safe, and simple” Olympics in Beijing, as Xi Jinping put it during a recent visit to games venues, though attempts to limit the spread of covid have required complex controls of the city and citizenry even more stringent than those in place for the summer’s Tokyo Olympics.