China COVID-19 outbreak stokes global worries as Beijing rallies citizens

Chinese state media rallied citizens on Wednesday for a “final victory” against COVID-19 as health officials abroad tried to understand the scale of the outbreak and how to stop it from spreading.

The lifting of the “zero COVID” lockdown in Beijing last month has unleashed the virus on 1.4 billion Chinese people who have no immunity after being protected since the virus emerged in the city of Wuhan three years ago.

The World Health Organization held a briefing in Geneva on Wednesday, a day after WHO officials met with Chinese scientists over concerns about the accuracy of Chinese data on the outbreak.

European Union health officials also met on Wednesday to discuss a coordinated response to the Chinese outbreak.

Many Chinese funeral homes and hospitals say they are overwhelmed, and international health experts predict at least one million deaths in China this year. China has reported five or more deaths per day since the U-turn policy.

“This is completely absurd,” Zhang, 66, a Beijing resident who gave only his last name, said of the official tally.

“Four of my close relatives died. That’s just from one family. I hope the government will be honest​​​​to the people and the rest of the world about what happened here.”

China’s cabinet said on Wednesday it would increase drug distribution and meet demand from medical institutions, nursing homes and rural areas at the center of the outbreak, state media reported.

“China and the Chinese people will surely win the final victory against the epidemic,” the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, said in an editorial, rejecting criticism of China’s three years of isolation, lockdown and trials that have fueled the last historic protests. year.

Beijing has hit back at several countries that require visitors from China to show a COVID test before departure, saying the rules are unreasonable and have no scientific basis.

Japan, the United States, Australia and some European countries are among the countries that require the test.

Looking for data

Willie Walsh, the head of the world’s largest airline association, IATA, criticized the “knee-jerk” measures as he previously said they had not stopped the spread of the virus which has crippled airlines recovering from the pandemic.

China will stop requiring people entering quarantine from January 8 but must be tested before arrival.

The WHO asked Chinese scientists for data on the sequence of the virus, hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations. Reuters reported last month that the WHO had not received data on new hospitalizations since Beijing’s U-turn policy.

China reported five new COVID deaths for Tuesday, bringing the official death toll to 5,258, very low by global standards.

UK-based health data company Airfinity says around 9,000 people in China may die each day from COVID.

Patients at Shanghai’s Zhongshan hospital, many of them elderly, were huddled in the hall on Tuesday between makeshift beds and people on oxygen ventilators and intravenous drips.

China’s $17 trillion economy has grown at its slowest pace in nearly half a century amid the COVID disruption.

But the yuan hit a four-month high against the dollar on Wednesday after Finance Minister Liu Kun pledged to step up fiscal expansion. The central bank also provides support.

UBS analysts expect China’s rapid reopening to cause a “deeper but shorter downturn” for the economy but also predict a recovery in activity from February.

Meanwhile, international flight bookings in China have risen 145 percent annually in recent years, state-run China Daily reported, citing Trip.com data.

The number of flights to and from China is still a fraction of pre-COVID levels. But there are already signs that the increase in travel from China could cause problems abroad.

South Korea, which began testing travelers from China on Monday, said more than five times as many tested positive.