weather advisory winter olympics. what is china doing to ensure that covid doesn t kill olympic dreams for the athletes? reporter: fredricka, 26 days. athletes competing here next month in the beijing winter games are going to be extremely limited in what they re allowed to do. beijing olympic officials talk about a closed loop bubble which limits athletes movements and will offer organizers a level of control never before seen before at any olympic games. under this closed loop bubble athletes must essentially stay in place from the time they arrive until the time they depart and for those athletes who are unvaccinated, you must actually spend 21 days in quarantine before competing. what we saw a lot of rules and regulations put in place by toek kw joe 2020 organizers, in toeky it seems like bay thing organizers are taking the mitigation measures to a whole new level. it s going to be some games or at least that s the hope of a
assumed all data and communications in china can be monitored, compromised or blocked. the games have been dubbed the genocide games against the back drop of china s persecution of uyghurs. congressman mccaul says he believes they should be ahead but hopes the athletes should stand up. i don t believe we should punish the athletes. but i do think the athletes are going to stand up in solidarity, hopefully, against these human rights violations. and i hope they take home the gold, too. others believe sports should be the focus and it can overshadow all the rest. we have a low this point relations between china and the u.s. and you have covid. so if the sports can rise above all of that i think it will say something amazing about the power of sports. organizers have said that they are planning on keeping the games in a closed loop bubble. but there is frankly no way that they can keep the game totally shut off from the surrounding city of beijing and no way of ensuring that any f
this morning, michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson. thanks for having me. all right, countdown is on for the beijing winter olympics. now just three days away. team usa bobsledder elena myers taylor said she tested positive for covid upon arrival, but she s optimistic she ll be able to compete. she s one of two dozen new cases detected despite the events closed loop bubble. selena live in beijing with the latest. reporter: around 70 positive covid cases involving athletes or team officials and for the athletes, we talked about this during the tokyo games, it is heart breaking and frustrating since some of them feel perfectly healthy. so in addition to taylor, there is a skier, audrey king is stuck in isolation, but asymptomatic.
no problem. yeah. success starts with intuit quickbooks. the beijing olympics are just one week away now. the three villages of the games have officially opened. right now supplies and food are being stocked while rooms and facilities are being prepared for athletes from around the world. this morning members of australia s olympic team touched down in beijing. this as the number of covid cases has risen to more than 100. at least 50 of those people were already inside the village s closed loop bubble. let s bring in cnn s will ri ripley. good morning, will. good evening to you. what s the mood in the athletes village? what are you hearing? reporter: the mood in the athletes village and the mood of the people in the closed loop system, meaning the journalist and other people arriving in
boycott. the olympic committee reported 21 new covid cases. now they have 308 since beijing started the closed loop bubble. back here in the u.s. you re looking at a live picture now of the white house all lit up in red, white and blue to cheer team u.s.a. the state department thursday publicly defended the right of u.s. athletes to speak out against human rights abuses in china despite olympic committee rules prohibiting any protests. just a short time ago russian president vladimir putin and the chinese leader xi jinping meeting in person at a time of high tension with the west. cnn s ivan watson joins us live from hong kong this morning. ivan, this will be an olympics like no other. reporter: yeah. you know, i m down here in hong kong, but my colleagues up in beijing, some of whom have covered other olympiads, say the atmosphere is different. for example, in beijing those