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Many athletes have been ruled out of the February 4-20 Games in Beijing Olympics after testing positive on arrival at the airport.
With more than 30 new COVID-19 cases being detected daily ahead of the Beijing Olympics, organizers said Wednesday they aren't worried and expect numbers to drop within days.
A total of 32 new cases -- 15 in tests of people arriving at the airport and 17 within the Olympic bubbles -- were reported by the Beijing organizing committee Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony. The average was 31 cases over the past three days.
Athletes and team officials FROM Beijing Olympics accounted for nine of the latest cases, and 23 were "stakeholders," a category that includes workers and media. Athletes testing positive now could miss their events.
Eleven people have been treated at the hospital for symptoms among the 232 positive tests registered since Jan. 23, though "none of those are seriously ill in any way," Olympic medical adviser Brian McCloskey said.
The Beijing Olympics federation announced that forwards Matthias Asperup and Nick Olesen tested positive for the coronavirus and went into isolation. Former NHL forward Mikkel Boedker, veteran defenseman Markus Lauridsen and two taxi squad players also missed practice after testing positive, though the team believed the results to be inaccurate and expected them back on the ice soon.
"Fortunately, it looks like four of them were false positive, we are hoping," longtime NHL center Frans Nielsen said. "I wouldn't called it 'scared,' but you're always worried about, Is there going to be more?”
Coach Heinz Ehlers said everyone tested negative twice within the previous 48 hours before leaving Denmark for Beijing. The National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of Denmark said it did not believe any other members of the nation's 62-person delegation would need to be isolated.