MGI safeguards the World Figure Skating Championships

The weeklong ISU (International Skating Union) World Figure Skating Championships (the Championships), an Olympic qualification event, is held in the Ericsson Globe arena in Stockholm, Sweden, from 23rd to 28th of March. The world’s top figure skaters from around the world have travelled to Sweden to compete for the title of world champion in men's singles, ladies' singles, pairs, and ice dance. The event is the largest sporting event in the country since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in early 2020.

After last year’s cancellation due to Sweden’s restriction on mass gatherings, the stakes remain high for an international sporting event on such a scale as the trajectory of rapidly rising cases and deaths continues in many regions in the country. The national authority has taken extra measures to manage the largest crowd since the pandemic. MGI’s innovative COVID-19 Container Lab, a mobile COVID-testing solution specifically designed for fast mass testing, has been put to “test”, providing COVID-19 testing for all the participants attending the Championships. All travellers, including athletes and their staff members, need to present a negative COVID-19 result no more than 48 hours before travelling to Stockholm and will undergo a further test upon arrival attending the Championships. This will ensure a COVID-safe event. Three positive cases have been identified to date by the ISU during a round of testing within the competition bubble, but the infected individuals have not been named due to privacy.

The mobile laboratory, built in a 12-meter shipping container, consists of three main cabins including reagent storage, sample preparation, and testing. The state-of-the-art Biosafety Level 2 laboratory is capable of processing 3,000 patient samples per day. The automation system, including sample scanning, transfer and viral RNA extraction, eliminates the risk for the laboratory technicians getting infected during the process. The highly automated easy-to-use system minimises the labour requirement, and it only requires three technicians to manage the entire workflow, whilst a traditional pathology lab would need a dozen technicians to process the same number of samples.

MGI (MGI Tech Co., Ltd.), a member of the BGI Group, is committed to enabling effective and affordable healthcare solutions for all. Based on its proprietary technology, MGI produces sequencing devices, equipment, consumables and reagents to support life science research, medicine and healthcare. MGI’s multi-omics platforms include reagents, medical imaging, laboratory automation and genetic sequencing. Providing real-time, comprehensive and life-long solutions, MGI’s mission is to develop and promote advanced life science tools for future healthcare. 

Source: mgi-tech.com