BEIJING — Whatever else can be said about China’s closed-loop system, designed to keep tens of thousands of athletes, officials, journalists and volunteers preserved in a COVID-free bubble, there is this: It’s worked. It’s joyless, it’s agonizing, it’s numbing … but it’s worked.
Now, hang on. Before you start singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” as you pound out a furious patriotic comment, allow me to add some context. I’m in Beijing — I've been here since before Tom Brady retired, but it feels like I’ve been here since Brady was at Michigan — and I’ve spent the entire time living in the most thorough, rigid, regulated COVID containment system in the world.