Chinese doctors and nurses are being told to keep working even when infected with Covid-19, staff and residents reported, as the virus rips through the population in the wake of eased restrictions. Some hospitals in Beijing have up to 80% of their staff infected, but many of them are still required to work due to staff shortages, a doctor in a large public hospital in Beijing told Reuters, adding he had spoken to his peers at other big hospitals in the capital. All operations and surgeries had been cancelled at…
Tag: World Health Organization
China’s zero-Covid policy is not sustainable, WHO director general says
The head of the World Health Organization has voiced concerns over China’s effort to eliminate the Covid virus, in a rare rebuke to Xi Jinping’s pledge to achieve “dynamic zero-Covid”. The WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a media briefing on Tuesday that his organisation does not think China’s Covid policy is “sustainable considering the behaviour of the virus”. “We have discussed about this issue with Chinese experts and we indicated that the approach will not be sustainable … I think a shift would be very important,” he…
China and the World Wait
Beijing’s waiting game A new coronavirus outbreak in China’s capital has raised concerns that Beijing may become, after Shanghai, the next Chinese megacity to put life on hold to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. Seventy people have tested positive in Beijing since Friday. In the capital’s fashionable Chaoyang district, home to most of those cases, the government initially ordered all 3.5 million residents to take three P.C.R. tests over the next five days. Bloomberg later reported that mass testing would take place in 11 of the city’s 16…
China’s Push to Isolate Taiwan Demands U.S. Action, Report Says
The report from the German Marshall Fund, a research group that promotes democracy, laid out similar examples of coercive diplomacy by China in the constellation of United Nations agencies and associated groups. (The authors, Jessica Drun and Bonnie Glaser, both Taiwan experts, said they had received funding from the Taiwanese government for the research but that the views in the report were their own. Separately, Laura Rosenberger, senior director for China and Taiwan at the White House National Security Council, was a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.) In…
Covid live: testing for fully vaccinated travellers to UK to be scrapped; new vaccine pass rules in France
The UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has confirmed that post-arrival testing requirements will be lifted for travel to the UK from 4am on 11 February, ahead of the half-term break for schools in the country. All fully vaccinated people will have to do is verify their status via a passenger locator form. He told the House of Commons: Our international travel regime will also now be liberalised as part of our efforts to ensure that 2022 is the year that restrictions on travel, lockdowns and limits on people’s lives are…
‘Tit for tat’: why hunt for Covid’s origins still wrapped in politics and controversy
Robert Garry, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane medical school in Louisiana, got a call from his university management telling him that agents from the FBI and CIA had requested a chat about his research into the origins of Covid-19. Garry agreed and on 30 July three agents flew down to Louisiana to talk to him in person. The meeting, held at a university conference room, began at 9am and ended at about 5pm. “I presented my evidence to the agents, who were properly trained scientists themselves. They…
Chinese police parade suspected Covid rule-breakers through streets
Armed police in Jingxi, in southern China, have paraded four alleged violators of Covid rules through the streets, state media reported, a practice that was banned but which has resurfaced in the struggle to enforce a zero-Covid policy. The four men were accused of smuggling people across China’s closed borders, and on Tuesday they were led through the streets wearing hazmat suits and bearing placards showing their name and photos. The state-run Guangxi daily reported the action was designed to deter “border-related crimes”. A common practice during the Cultural Revolution,…
Covid news live: infections hit record highs across Europe; South Africa reinstates contact tracing and isolation
Infectious disease epidemiologist and World Health Organization Covid-19 Technical Lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, has cautioned against becoming “numb” to rising case numbers. Do not become numb to these numbers. Each one is a person, a family, a friend, a loved one… Do not become complacent. Even if Omicron is less severe. Many places are seeing record numbers of cases and hospitalisation rates… We can do more. We need to end this pandemic.” Maria Van Kerkhove (@mvankerkhove) Do not become numb to these numbers. Each one is a person, a family,…
Covid live: Minister says ‘I’d rather over-react’ to variant as mask mandates back in England; Japan confirms first Omicron case
EasyJet said near-term bookings had weakened since the new Omicron variant was identified amid concerns over travel restrictions, but it still expects passenger numbers to return to close to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the summer. The airline reported a loss before tax of £1.1bn for the year to 30 September, wider than the £835m loss made in 2020, but the figure was better than analysts had expected. Johan Lundgren, the chief executive, said that while “many uncertainties remain as we navigate the winter”, the airline expects to benefit…
The W.H.O. Skips Forward Two Greek Letters, Avoiding a Xi Variant
When the World Health Organization began to name the emerging variants of the coronavirus, officials turned to the Greek alphabet to make it easier for the public to understand the evolution: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and so on. Now the alphabet has created its own political headache. When it came time to name the potentially dangerous new variant that has emerged in southern Africa, the next letter in alphabetical order was Nu, which officials thought would be too easily confused with “new.” The letter after that was even more complicated:…