SHANGHAI • China is tightening pandemic restrictions in Shanghai and expanding a mass testing sweep in Beijing as officials chase the elusive goal of wiping out Covid-19 cases in the community.
In rare public comments by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on a government's handling of the virus, it said yesterday that China's zero-tolerance Covid-19 policy is not sustainable, given what is known of the disease.
"We don't think that it is sustainable considering the behaviour of the virus,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing.
Speaking after Dr Tedros, WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said the impact of a “zero-Covid” policy on human rights needs to be taken into consideration alongside the effect on a country's economy from any coronavirus policy.
He also noted that China has registered 15,000 deaths since the virus was first detected in Wuhan in late 2019 - a relatively low number compared with 999,475 in the United States and more than 500,000 in India.
This story is from the May 11, 2022 edition of The Straits Times.
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This story is from the May 11, 2022 edition of The Straits Times.
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