Tag: Coronavirus Risks and Safety Concerns

Today’s Top News: A Makeshift Wagner Memorial in Moscow, and More

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The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a…

WHO Accuses China of Withholding Data on Covid’s Origins

Chin@Strategy

The World Health Organization rebuked Chinese officials on Friday for withholding scientific research that may link the origin of the coronavirus to wild animals called raccoon dogs, asking why the data had not been made available three years ago and why, after it was published online in January, it could not be found now. Before the Chinese data disappeared, an international team of virus experts downloaded and began analyzing the research. They say it supports the idea that the pandemic could have begun when illegally traded raccoon dogs infected humans…

China Celebrates Lunar New Year After ‘Zero Covid’ With Caution

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Sheng Chun had not visited his parents in their mountain village in southern China for more than three years because China’s “zero Covid” restrictions made travel difficult. Then the country abandoned its stringent pandemic rules, and he decided to take a long-anticipated road trip. With his son and wife, Mr. Sheng, 43, embarked on a two-week journey from Beijing that would cover more than 1,000 miles, through cultural spots like a Ming dynasty village and temples, then finally home for the Lunar New Year. He hoped to later drive his…

E.U. Urges Nations to Require Negative Covid Tests for Travelers From China

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BRUSSELS — The European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its 27 member nations to require a negative Covid-19 test for travelers boarding flights from China to the region, amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the country and Beijing’s lifting of its draconian travel restrictions. The bloc’s recommendation, an attempt at a unified policy, came after three major European tourist destinations — France, Italy and Spain — as well as Britain, introduced testing and other requirements for travelers from China. The E.U. move would bring back a tough pandemic-era measure…

China Denounces Covid Testing Rules Imposed on Its Travelers

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The Chinese government on Tuesday denounced Covid testing requirements imposed by other countries on travelers arriving from China as unscientific or “excessive,” and threatened to take countermeasures. As China prepares to open its borders later this week, allowing its citizens to travel abroad for the first time since the pandemic began, countries like Canada, the United States, France, Spain, Japan and the United Kingdom have moved to restrict travelers arriving from the country. The countries have cited concerns about a surge in Covid-19 infections in China, the potential risk of…

China’s New Covid Chapter

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China’s Covid outbreak appears to be going from bad to worse. In recent days, local governments have reported hundreds of thousands of infections a day. Sick patients are crowding hospital hallways, videos obtained by The Times showed. In a video from The Associated Press, a medical worker at a hospital in Zhuozhou, a city near Beijing, asked that a patient be taken elsewhere because the facility was out of oxygen. “China’s medical system is already fragile even in the best of times — people rely on hospital E.R.s for even…

From Zero Covid to No Plan: Behind China’s Pandemic U-Turn

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The southwestern city of Chongqing was the latest frontline of Xi Jinping’s “zero Covid” war, until it came to epitomize China’s potentially devastating about-face that has cracked the Communist Party’s edifice of absolute control. The city last month was enduring one of the biggest outbreaks cropping up across China, when the national leader, Mr. Xi, ordered officials to continue mass testing, lockdowns and quarantines. Chen Min’er, the Chongqing party secretary, devoutly complied, closing off neighborhoods and ordering the instant construction of a quarantine hospital designed to hold up to 21,000…

As Covid Spreads Fast in China, Beijing Isn’t in Lockdown. But It Feels Like It.

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Restaurants have closed because too many staff members have tested positive for Covid. The usually ubiquitous food delivery workers zipping through traffic on their scooters have nearly vanished because of infections. Pharmacies have been emptied of cold medicine, and supermarkets have been running low on the essentials: disinfectant solution, antibacterial wipes, beer. Less than a week after the Chinese government lifted its stringent “zero Covid” restrictions, Beijing looks like a city in the throes of a lockdown — this time, self-imposed by residents. Sidewalks and pedestrian shopping streets are barren,…

‘It Doesn’t Hurt at All’: In China’s New Covid Strategy, Vaccines Matter

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The Chinese government is on a mission: to convince older citizens that its latest Covid-19 vaccines are easy to take and effective. In state-run media, a woman at a clinic in Tianjin said “there was no discomfort” with a new inhaled vaccine, while a woman in Shanghai quipped that getting her booster was “a bit like drinking milk tea.” A man in Wenzhou reassured the hesitant, “it doesn’t hurt at all, and it’s a little sweet.” Such state-sponsored messaging is critical as the Chinese government drops its onerous Covid restrictions…

China Protests Over ‘Zero Covid’ Follow Months of Economic Pain

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The toll of China’s unwavering approach to fighting Covid has rippled through the world’s second-largest economy for months: Youth unemployment reached a record 20 percent, corporate profits sagged, and economic growth fell well below Beijing’s own projections. The economic pain has intensified the pressure to ease pandemic restrictions to salvage the flagging economy and restore some semblance of normal life. Frustration with the government’s zero-tolerance Covid strategy, which has failed to prevent a big jump in cases, escalated over the weekend as a population tired of unpredictable lockdowns, extended quarantines…