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Waiting for the doctor's appointment – the corona numbers are skyrocketing in Beijing
Photo: Ng Han Guan / dpa
Amid the huge spike in coronavirus cases in China, state propaganda has defended the strict zero-Covid policy abruptly lifted a week ago.
The harsh measures have created the conditions and gained time to adapt politics to the weaker omicron virus and to reduce the effects on economic development, the communist party organ "People's Daily" argued in a comment on Thursday.
WHO: Beijing should focus on relieving the health system
However, according to World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Relief 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 emphasized at a press conference in Geneva.
The easing did not trigger the current corona wave.
He hopes that Beijing will focus its corona policy on relieving the burden on the health system in the future.
Now it is important to ensure that risk groups are vaccinated.
China's health authorities recently gave the green light for a second booster for older people over 60 or risk groups with chronic diseases, for example.
According to official figures, only 69 percent of Chinese over the age of 60 and only 42 percent of those over 80 have received three vaccinations so far.
For fear of side effects, older people in China have so far only been insufficiently vaccinated.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hinted that Beijing is not cooperating sufficiently with the UN health authority to get to the bottom of what triggered the pandemic.
"We continue to urge China to provide the data we request and conduct studies so that we can better understand the origin of the virus," he said on Wednesday.
The corona situation in China is difficult to assess because there are no longer any reliable figures.
Hospitals are reporting a rush as authorities urge people to recover from Covid-19 at home if possible.
Many companies, shops and restaurants in Beijing are closed because workers are sick in droves.
muk/dpa
