China defends covid zero policy German Holocaust denier goes to jail

Amid the surge in coronavirus cases in China, Chinese propaganda has defended the strict zero-Covid policy that was abruptly lifted a week ago.

The tough measures have created the conditions and bought time to adapt politics to the weaker omicron virus and mitigate the effects on economic development, the communist party organ “People’s Daily” argued in a commentary on Thursday.

However, according to World Health Organization (WHO) emergency response coordinator Mike Ryan, the zero-Covid policy has recently failed to contain the virus. “The increasingly intensive spread happened long before the measures were changed,” he stressed at a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday. The relaxations did not trigger the current corona wave. He hopes that Beijing will focus its corona policy in the future on relieving the burden on the health system. Now it is important to ensure that risk groups are vaccinated.

The Chinese health authorities recently gave the green light for a second booster for, for example, the over-60s or high-risk groups with chronic diseases. According to official figures, only 69 percent of Chinese people over 60 and only 42 percent of people over 80 have received three vaccinations so far. For fear of side effects, the elderly in China have only been insufficiently vaccinated so far.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hinted that Beijing is not cooperating enough with the UN health authority to get to the bottom of what is causing the pandemic. “We continue to urge China to provide requested data and conduct investigations so that we can better understand the origins of the virus,” he said on Wednesday.

The corona situation in China is difficult to estimate because there are no reliable figures anymore. Hospitals are reporting a rush as authorities urge people to recover from Covid-19 at home if possible. Many businesses, shops and restaurants in Beijing are closed because workers are sick en masse. (aeg/sda/dpa)