ANALYSIS | More than a million people apply to enter the Beijing Olympic bubble free of covid

Hong Kong (CNN) – Excitement for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is growing in China, with people clamoring for positions as volunteer workers (even as restrictions tighten amid a Covid-19 outbreak).

Since the applications were opened nearly two years ago, more than a million people have applied to work without pay at the Beijing Games, which will be held in February, the state tabloid reported Monday. Global Times. From that huge group, nearly 20,000 volunteers were selected, mostly university students from Beijing and the surrounding Hebei province.

The flood of hopefuls reflects the enthusiasm that reigns in China as Beijing prepares to become the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics. This is an important source of national pride, evident in the grandiose official rhetoric and frequent state media coverage in the run-up to the Games.

Before the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, similar crowds of citizens eager to participate signed up as volunteers, and state media reported more than 1.2 million applications.

But the upcoming Winter Games are being held in a drastically different environment, as China is one of the few countries in the world that continues to maintain the “zero covid” policy.

Although other countries in the region and the world are beginning to open up and “live with the covid”, the Chinese authorities show no signs of backing down on strict measures and border closures in the search for a country free of the virus.

In recent weeks, the resurgence of the virus has caused the appearance of cases in more than a third of Chinese provinces and regions, prompting local governments to introduce severe travel restrictions and subject millions of people to closures. sudden.

In a way, the situation resembles that of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, delayed by the pandemic, which were held a few months ago against the backdrop of the covid crisis in the host country. As athletes gathered in the Japanese capital between July and August, new daily cases skyrocketed and Tokyo declared a state of emergency.

The Japanese government’s determination to hold the Games despite the risk of covid was controversial, and public support dropped dramatically. Although 80,000 people initially signed up to volunteer for the Games, at least 10,000 had resigned by mid-June, mostly due to concerns about COVID. Many were still waiting to be vaccinated, saying they received little protection against covid, beyond cloth masks and hand sanitizer.

There does not appear to be such reluctance in China, reflecting confidence in the country’s covid prevention measures, which are widely popular with the public.

Unlike the delay in vaccination before the Tokyo Olympics, China launched its vaccination program with remarkable speed and efficiency. So far, more than 2.2 billion doses have been administered in mainland China, the country’s National Health Commission reported Tuesday.

To ensure that the Olympic Games do not cause an outbreak among the population, Chinese organizers will hold the Games in what has been called a “safe covid bubble” around Beijing, aimed at separating athletes and participants from local residents. Only people living in mainland China will be able to attend the Games as spectators.

But the Beijing Games have not avoided controversy. Human rights activists have called on the United States and other democracies to boycott the event, citing Beijing’s alleged human rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. The Chinese government has repeatedly denied these claims.

International journalists have also criticized the organizers for their lack of transparency and access. On Tuesday, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said on Twitter that foreign journalists were excluded from the events, blocked access to press conferences and prevented from reporting on the preparations.

But the controversy abroad hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm at home. Even the grueling selection and training process has not deterred the army of young volunteers.

One of the selected volunteers, student Li Wanghua, told the state newspaper China Daily who had to complete more than 20 online training sessions before taking a series of exams. The applicants were tested on their knowledge of winter sports and the Games, as well as their knowledge of English, before undergoing interviews.

Then came the training. Since many of the competitions will be held outdoors, in the snow, volunteers must take physical assessments such as walking 15 kilometers across the field to train their resistance to cold, Li said.

That’s just the beginning of their training, which will last until the end of the year for the 20,000 selected volunteers, according to the Global Times. The training program includes learning about service behavior, emergency care, covid prevention strategies, and basic psychological and physical health care.

The job can also come at a personal cost. A volunteer who was selected to work at the Beijing airport said she has to check in two weeks before the Games start, which means she will miss the Lunar New Year celebrations. It is one of the largest annual holidays in China, in which families often get together, something similar to Thanksgiving or Christmas in the United States.

But for volunteers it matters little: the Olympics provide them – and China – with a triumphant moment in the global spotlight.

“The professionalism and passion of the volunteers from the 2008 Beijing Olympics are deeply etched in my memory, even though I was only a primary school student at the time,” Li told China Daily. “It is an honor to have the opportunity to emulate them.”