Geneva: The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said he is “deeply concerned” about the unprecedentedly rapid rise in Covid cases in China, urging China to speed up the vaccination of those most at risk.
During the weekly press conference, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for detailed information on the severity of the disease, hospital admissions and the need for intensive care, saying, “Who is deeply concerned about the situation in China, in which the news of serious disease is increasing.
“The WHO is joining China in focusing efforts to vaccinate the most at-risk people across the country, and we will continue to support China to protect its medical care and health system,” he said.
China had imposed strict COVID restrictions since 2020, which it used to call its ‘Zero COVID’ policy. But now the government had lifted most of the restrictions without any notice in early December, because there was public dissatisfaction with them, and they also had a significant impact on the economy.
Since then, there has been a sharp rise in cases of corona, and the fear of increasing mortality among the elderly, because they are at greater risk.
Chinese officials said on Tuesday that only those who died of failure to breathe due to the virus will now be counted under the Covid death figures.
This change in the criteria for recording deaths from the virus means that most are no longer counted, and China said on Wednesday that not a single person died of Covid-19.