threshold for olympic participants, making it easier to produce a negative test. so far more than 70 covid cases have been registered among personnel related to the olympics. all of them are nonathletes. meantime, take covid outbreak in a hong kong community has spread to more than 170 confirmed or preliminary positive cases. hundreds of people are under a snap lockdown after cases were reported over the weekend. we re joined now live from hong kong and our david culver in beijing. welcome to you both. what is the latest on this housing of covid outbreak and how is it testing hong kong s zero covid strategy? reporter: i m standing outside a housing area in hong kong and this is effectively the epicenter of hong kong s omicron outbreak. on sunday the city reported 125 new locally transmitted cases of
community who are under lockdown for up to five days. when carrie lam was here for a site visit on sunday, yesterday, she was met with angry jeers and slurs at her from residents stuck in that building right now. her site visit lasted only 15 minutes. thanks for that. david, let s go to you now. how have china s covid policies changed since that massive lockdown of wuhan at the start of this pandemic two years ago? and what will it mean for the olympics? hey there, rosemary, good to be with you. it s interesting to look at what kristi was talking about over the border in hong kong. those are the type of restrictions that are part of the zero covid approach that mainland has been dealing with about two years, going back to wuhan. we just marked two years since that unprecedented lockdown that lasted some 76 days. i think what s important to take from that is that in many ways the strict measures, while
pre-pandemic as almost all remaining restrictions in england are set to be lifted later this week. meanwhile just across the channel in brussels, protests turned violent over covid restrictions and the french president s plan to piss off the unvaccinated appears to be working. it requires people to show proof of vaccination to access a range of everyday activities. a negative test is no longer good enough. now here s david culver in beijing. reporter: thanks, scott. more confirmed cases within the olympic bubble here in beijing. six added today bringing the total number to 78. officials say so far roughly 3200 people have arrived here in china for the olympics. they re going to be kept separate from the rest of us and the rest of china s population. 43 of those cases, by the way, that tested positive did so upon arriving here. we re told that one case was either an athlete or official. olympic organizers did not specify, but they stress there
13 infections there confirmed, but what s got the authorities particularly concerned is that three of those cases are of the new omicron variant, and the authorities say that they re nervous because that cluster is not tied to any international travel. most of the new cases of omicron that are popping up in one country after another are linked to international travel, linked to travel from the african continent. that suggests that this new cluster in australia is local transmission. so authorities there are taking it very seriously. i m david culver in beijing, where we are about two months from the start of the winter olympic games and officials are hoping strict covid defenses will keep omicron away. china already has some of the world s toughest containment measures in place. as for those taking part in the winter games, they re going to be completely sealed off from the rest of us in china.
the virus and cooperation to fight the disease. all of that done at the earliest possible time. that s just not true, kim. it covered up the silencing of it and mishandling, a lot was put on the wuhan government. and nonetheless, it seems to make it seem that this was preventible for several weeks. we know that not to be the case now. and going forward, it seems that china would like to push back this, and push a propaganda campaign that has been relentless, kim, in recrafting this narrative. that seems to be a concern for the u.s. going forward and really for the international community as a whole. scientists tell me not getting to the bottom of this is really going to be damaging in trying to prevent future pandemics. yeah, that s what it all comes down to. david culver in beijing, thanks