Sending Americans to the Beijing Winter Olympics is unsafe and unwise

Yet consider that the Olympics represents an unknowable health risk for the thousands of foreign citizens attending, who must rely on the Chinese government’s honesty about the public health situation there. Beijing’s record shows why skepticism is warranted.

In early August, Chinese state media reported an outbreak of the delta coronavirus variant that reached at least 17 provinces, but with only a few hundred total cases. Only about three weeks later, Chinese authorities reported that local cases were down to zero. Even with the Chinese government’s ability to enforce widespread testing and lockdowns, those numbers strain credulity, considering current information about how the delta variant has spread in other countries. Local outbreaks continued to pop up in different parts of China throughout September, all with suspiciously low case numbers.

“The small number of cases they have reported across such a large geographic area defies everything we know about the increased transmissibility of this variant,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) wrote in a letter last month to Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC). “It is very likely that these case numbers are undercounted given China’s consistent attempts to downplay the severity of the virus within its borders.”