This week, CBS Information correspondent Jamie Yuccas joins chief Washington correspondent Main Garrett from Beijing to speak about what it has been wish to cowl the 2022 Winter Olympics, with extraordinarily inflexible COVID-19 protocols in place, and what it has been like navigating the strict COVID-19 protocols in place and reporting beneath the watchful eye of Chinese language officers.
Highlights
Chinese language officers and the media in Beijing: "No one's come to me and stated, 'You must current it this fashion or you may't say this.' I feel we had been all fairly effectively versed, and talked concerning the issues that we'd discuss and never discuss as a gaggle. We have now burner telephones with us, burner computer systems with us. I didn't deliver my private mobile phone with me in any respect as a result of I used to be instructed of the safety issues right here. I've household and pals who've traveled to China up to now who stated, 'Simply do not deliver it. It is not price it.'
The one factor that has occurred and look, I do not know what's true, however Jack and I, my producer, someday we're speaking about the truth that we actually wanted extra bottled water in our room. We had been simply speaking within the lodge to ourselves. And impulsively, the subsequent day when cleansing got here, we each had 12 bottles of water in our room. So I've to imagine that there are folks listening."
COVID precautions and the Beijing "bubble": "I am unable to get out of the loop. We take a bus from our lodge into the workspace, which is right here... I can go to completely different sporting venues and watch among the sporting venues. It's important to put on your your KN-95 and N-95 [masks]... We get examined each single day. It is a throat swab right here in Beijing. You realize these outcomes come again someday within the afternoon. If we do not hear from anyone, we're clear we maintain going.
"However actually, it has been attention-grabbing as a result of you must sort of navigate the transportation system right here. Being in a closed loop, there's really three completely different websites. There's Beijing, after which there's two mountain websites the place the snowboarding and snowboarding and all these varieties of occasions are happening. It's important to take practice programs up there. You board from a very completely different platform. They maintain you separated from anybody in most of the people.
"We even have visitors lanes right here devoted strictly to the buses and taxis. And the one attention-grabbing factor I need to let you know about that, that we learn in our playbook is that if for some cause there may be an accident with the final inhabitants of China, with our bus or taxi, the Chinese language inhabitants is meant to remain very far-off from us. It says- do not assist them. Mainly, let emergency crews get on scene as a result of they don't need to have any unfold between these video games and the remainder of the inhabitants of China in terms of COVID.
"You needed to be boosted. I needed to have two COVID authorised checks by amenities that had been authorised by the Chinese language authorities earlier than I used to be in a position to board my airplane. I used to be temperature-checked on the airplane. After I landed, I had a nasal swab and a throat swab. And now I've had throat swabs each day that I have been right here. Each morning I've to enter in my well being app, my temperature."
Psychological well being and the athletes: "I feel it is actually vital as a result of I feel we up to now have all the time considered athletes, particularly at this degree, because the sort of people who find themselves resilient and so they simply have to suck it up and get by it. And I feel Michael Phelps, Simone Biles modified that narrative. And you actually have a technology of athletes now at a time the place the nation is speaking about psychological well being, particularly with COVID, that I feel there's extra understanding and empathy round it... What they've instructed me, the athletes, is it is made them higher at their efficiency. So it will be attention-grabbing to see how that dialog transpires takes place after which the place we go from there."
Govt producer: Arden Farhi
Producers: Jamie Benson, Jacob Rosen, Sara Prepare dinner and Eleanor Watson
CBSN Manufacturing: Eric Soussanin
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