BEIJING: On Wednesday, the president of the World Health Organization expressed his "very concern" at an unusual spike in Covid cases in China, and the organisation asked Beijing to expedite the vaccination of the most vulnerable people.
In a weekly press conference, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged for more specific information on disease severity, hospital admissions, and the need for urgent care, saying, "WHO is particularly worried over the growing situation in China, with increased reports of severe disease."
He continued, "WHO continues to offer our support for clinical care and safeguarding China's health system, and we encourage China to concentrate its efforts on immunising those who are most at risk across the nation.
China enacted stringent health regulations in 2020 as part of a so-called "zero Covid" programme.
But in the face of mounting public annoyance and a severe negative impact on the economy, the government abruptly ended the majority of those policies in the early days of December.
Since then, there have been an unprecedented number of cases, fueling concerns about a high mortality rate among the elderly, who are particularly susceptible.
Chinese authorities announced on Tuesday that the Covid mortality numbers would no longer include anyone who had indirectly died from respiratory failure brought on by the virus.
The majority of virus-related fatalities are no longer counted due to changes in the recording criteria, and China reported on Wednesday that no one had died of Covid-19 the day before.
More vaccinations are urgently needed, according to WHO emergency chief Michael Ryan. "We've been saying this for weeks that this highly infectious virus was always going to be very hard to stop completely, with just public health and social measures," he said.
"The majority of nations have truly switched to a mixed strategy, "The most common Covid variation says that vaccination is "the exit strategy in that sense from the influence of a wave of Omicron."
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