Winter Olympics: easier for athletes to test negative at Beijing 2022 as IOC softens restrictions in trying to reduce chances of false positives
- Organisers have lowered the Ct value to 35 from 40, which means those recovering from Covid-19 are less likely to test positive on arrival in Beijing
- ‘At what level of Ct does somebody start being infectious or stop being infectious is not absolutely clear,’ IOC medical chief Brian McCloskey says
Beijing Winter Games medical officials have lowered the Ct value for Covid-19 PCR tests, making it easier for participants to return a negative result.
Organisers have lowered the cycle threshold (Ct) for producing a negative test to 35 from 40 after their initial higher value was questioned.
The new threshold brings it in line with many countries and sports governing authorities, which have largely maintained values of between 30 and 35. A person recovering from Covid-19 who has a higher Ct value is less infectious, and for Beijing, anyone returning a result below 35 is considered positive.
Brian McCloskey, head of the Beijing 2022 Medical Expert Panel, said Ct value was not the only criteria organisers are using to decide if a Covid-19 patient is ready to be released into the Winter Games “closed loop”.
“The issue is … at what level of Ct does somebody start being infectious or stop being infectious is not absolutely clear,” McCloskey said in a recent media briefing hours before the Ct value was changed. “There is a value judgment involved in deciding what cut-off point to use.
“It’s always the case with medical tests. You can either set the bar very low to make sure nobody gets through the system who might be infectious. Or you can set the bar higher to make sure nobody gets excluded from the Games because of a false positive test. And we have to try to find a balance within that and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
