| Good morning, and TGIF, everybody. The Olympic opening ceremonies are here and American dignitaries are boycotting. Below: Medicare will begin covering coronavirus tests this spring, and we dive into the latest on state marijuana, abortion and pandemic policies. But first: | Olympic coaches, athletes share what life's like inside the "covid bubble" |  The opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) | | | Daily testing. Constant masking. Gloves to collect food. A smartphone app that tracks your health. Workers dressed in hazmat suits. And a closed off area cut off from the rest of the world. Welcome to the pandemic protocols of the Beijing Olympics. It's the second Games amid the coronavirus and athletes are keenly aware that an infection could dash their dreams of competing in one of the most iconic sporting events in the world. | - "Everybody realizes they have worked so hard and so much," Robert Fegg, Team USA's luge head coach, told The Health 202. "There's just no place right now to relax over the situation and risk an infection."
| | The 2022 Winter Games may be nothing like the Before Times. But they're also not like last year's pandemic Olympics either. | | Operating under China's "zero-covid policy," the environment is even more controlled than in Tokyo last summer. Athletes, journalists, coaches and workers are enclosed in what's called a "closed loop": a system of separate transportation, living areas, practice facilities and competition venues. | - Or as our colleague Adam Kilgore put it, "The Beijing Olympics are composed of Beijing and the Olympics, and the two are walled off from each other."
- Why? "The mortal fear that China has is that somehow omicron is going to enter through the Olympics and sweep through Beijing," Les Carpenter, a sports reporter for The Post, said in a video about the "closed loop" system. "So they're going to do everything they can to make sure that that doesn't happen."
| | Athletes prepare for the Games for years, but they also had to prepare for Beijing for weeks. | - They took their temperatures daily and tracked their health for 14 days on an app, called My 2022. They uploaded their vaccine cards. And they took two tests on two separate days within 96 hours of their departure.
- "The two weeks leading up to the Games was quite strict as far as the regulations and the timing of when we had to have certain tests and submit certain information," Coley Oliver, a coach who works with U.S. Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, told The Health 202.
| | Many traveled by chartered flights, and upon arrival, soon-to-be loop inhabitants were greeted by workers in full protective suits. | - ''When we landed in Beijing, it was like landing in another world," said Jake Brown, a Team USA biathlon athlete.
| | Different sports and teams and roommates essentially make up their own mini-bubbles. Limiting interactions to only those that are necessary is the name of the Games. | | There are daily coronavirus tests, and dining halls with plexiglass partitions at the tables. Dedicated transportation shepherds those in the closed loop from place to place — no matter how close it may be. That's the case for Fegg, who said the luge track and the Olympic Village feel like a stone's throw away. | - "You go into the bus, they drive you over," he said. "We easily could walk, we would actually prefer probably walking, but that would mean that we leave the premises."
| | Even the strictest of precautions won't entirely keep the virus out. There have been a total of 287 confirmed cases, of which 102 are athletes and team officials. Those who tested positive from the United States include four-time Olympian Elana Meyers Taylor, Team USA's top medal hope in bobsled, our colleague Amy Cheng reports. She has now had one negative test, and needs another. The risk of catching the virus in the closed loop is low — and will be even lower if people stick to the rules, Brian McCloskey, chair of the Olympic medical expert panel, said Wednesday. | - How one athlete sees it: "I feel very comfortable, very safe here," Brown said. "I think for most all of us, the fear has been maybe we don't get to compete."
| | |  | Agency alert | | Medicare to cover at-home coronavirus tests |  Medicare enrollees will no longer have to shoulder up front costs for coronavirus rapid tests. (Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post) | | | At-home coronavirus tests will soon be free for the 64 million seniors and Americans with disabilities enrolled in Medicare, The Posts Amy Goldstein reports. | | The announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services follows weeks of public outcry after some of the country's most vulnerable citizens to the virus were left out of President Biden's January order requiring health insurers to foot the bill for at-home tests for most Americans with private insurance. While the coronavirus rapid tests will be the first time Medicare will cover over-the-counter products in its roughly 57 years of existence, Amy writes that it remains unclear whether the program could affect other areas of coverage for enrollees, such as higher monthly premiums. Here's what you need to know: | - Starting early spring, Americans enrolled in Medicare will be able to take home up to eight tests per month without a doctor's note from eligible pharmacies and participating entities across the country.
- Pharmacies will be paid directly for the tests through the government, meaning Medicare enrollees can pick up coronavirus rapid tests at no cost.
| | More details to come: CMS did not say which pharmacies would be participating in the initiative or specify a date that the new program would go into effect. Until then: Medicare enrollees can receive lab-based tests with a prescription from a health-care practitioner, go to one of the 20,000 community testing sites available across the country or order free tests through covidtests.gov. | | |  | State scan | | | Women's sports: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) signed legislation yesterday that bans transgender girls and college-age women from playing on female sports teams, calling it "an act to protect fairness in women's sports." "With Noem's signature, South Dakota became the 10th state nationwide to enact such a ban, some of which are now facing legal challenges," Mike DeBonis reports. "She was the first governor this year to sign one into law." Abortion ban stifled: Republicans in South Dakota's state legislature squashed a near-total abortion ban proposed by Noem, citing concerns that the bill could "jeopardize" the state's case in another legal battle currently underway against Planned Parenthood, The Associated Press reports. | - The ban was a key item on the governor's agenda and would have mirrored the controversial Texas law that relies on private enforcement by residents and bars physicians from performing the procedure after fetal cardiac activity is detected.
| | Signing off: School officials in Utah must seek a state leader's approval before shifting students to online learning amid coronavirus outbreaks, per The Post's Brittany Shammas reports. Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said in-person classes are "critical" for student's development, but some teachers and school administrators have pushed back against the new law. Jumping ahead: Adults in San Francisco that received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be able to receive a second booster shot in a break from federal recommendations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't endorsed a third shot, but the department cited studies showing three shots maintain protection against omicron. The 37th state to legalize: Patients with qualifying conditions such as cancer or Parkinson's disease in Mississippi will now be able to legally purchase up to three ounces of marijuana per month for medical use after Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the bill into law Wednesday. | - Mississippians diagnosed with at least one of two dozen "debilitating medical conditions" must acquire a written certificate from a licensed health-care professional during an in-office visit to participate in the program.
| | |  | In other health news | | - Plotting the next phase: As omicron numbers fall, the Biden administration looks to expand vaccine supply, invest in new treatments to curb the effects of the virus and ease Americans into the idea of living in an endemic state, Politico's Adam Cancryn writes — but the president isn't declaring a victory over covid-19 yet.
- New funding from the Department of Health and Human Services will go toward providing addiction education, treatment planning and parenting classes to curb the negative effects of addiction for pregnant and postpartum women affected by substance use.
- Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers back a 9/11-style commission to investigate the origins of the coronavirus and the country's pandemic response, per the The New York Times.
- Sales of Biogen's controversial Alzheimer's drug, Aduhelm, continued to underperform last quarter, leading to a disappointing financial outlook for this year, Stat's Adam Feuerstein and Damian Garde report.
- What live with the virus means: The popular mantra of 2022 may depend on where you live. Our colleagues dive into what it may look like across the globe.
| | HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra: |  | | | | | |  | Quote of the week | | | Matt 'The Maskalorian' Adams | "I am the Maskalorian, giver of masks… Whether you're a human or a droid, it doesn't matter. We must be vigilant and do what we can to keep each other protected," said Adams, who's known for handing out masks in places like Austria to New York City. | | | | | | | | |  | Sugar rush | | | Thanks for reading! See y'all Monday. | |
