China promised a "simple, safe, and splendid" Beijing Olympics. While the elaborate, anti-COVID measures at the 2022 Winter Games were far from simple, organizers managed to put on a show, even amid the constrained circumstances of a global health crisis. There's also no doubt that the event was safe.

COVID-19 has been surging around the world, fueled by the more contagious Omicron variant. On Dec. 27, just over a month before the Winter Games began, global daily COVID-19 cases hit a record 1.