WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived at Beijing on Thursday night for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

 
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived at Beijing on Thursday night for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, his second visit to China since the COVID-19 outbreak began in late 2019 and early 2020. 

The chief of the WHO posted a picture of he stepping off a plane on Twitter on Thursday night, saying that alongside UN Secretary-General and other leaders, he came to join the opening of the Games which is scheduled on Friday night. "The Games are the symbol of hope, unity, solidarity and peace. Those values are needed more than ever as we fight COVID-19 together," he said. 

Tedros visited China in January 2020 during the early stage of the outbreak, and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to share the latest information related to the outbreak and reiterated his organization's commitment to bring it under control. Over the past two years, China and the WHO have been working closely in sharing information, providing experiences, origins-tracing studies, supporting vaccinations among other areas of collaboration. 

Tedros accepted an invitation to attend the Winter Olympics because the event provides a powerful platform for advancing multilateral collaboration and celebrating the strong connections between sport and health, a spokesperson told the Global Times via email on Thursday. 

The WHO's participation in the event is in line with the close collaboration between it and the International Olympic Committee, which was formalized in a memorandum of understanding to advocate healthy lifestyles through sport, signed on May 16, 2020, the spokesperson said. 

The WHO chief also participated in the 2021 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo. He will be following the official protocols as set out by the host government, according to the spokesperson.

At least 32 foreign heads of state, heads of government, members of royal families and heads of international organizations will attend the opening ceremony of the Games, and as of 8 pm Thursday, 16 visiting dignitaries have arrived in Beijing.

The large scale of foreign leaders attending the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics - an unprecedented offline gathering of top leaders since the pandemic emerged - underscores China's capacity of unifying others in challenging times, according to experts.