- Antarctic sea ice ‘behaving strangely’ as Arctic reaches ‘below-average’ winter peak Carbon Brief
- Antarctic sea ice near historic lows: Arctic ice continues decline Phys.org
- How scientists believe the loss of Arctic sea ice will impact US weather patterns Fox Weather
- Letters to the Editor: Climate change and an ice-free Arctic are our Frankenstein’s monster Yahoo! Voices
- Study warns growing threat could drastically alter Arctic in decade to come: ‘This would transform the Arctic into a completely different environment’ The Cool Down
Tag Archives: peak
“From Peak TV To Peak Caution”: BBC Drama Boss Says Industry Has Become “Fearful” – Deadline
- “From Peak TV To Peak Caution”: BBC Drama Boss Says Industry Has Become “Fearful” Deadline
- BBC Unveils Mega 12-Show Drama Slate Featuring ‘Dear England’ Adaptation Starring Joseph Fiennes, Aimee Lou Wood’s Debut Writing Project & Rebecca Hall-Led Series From Element Deadline
- Director of BBC Drama Lindsay Salt sets out her vision and announces 12 new dramas totalling 66 hours BBC
- Joseph Fiennes to Star in TV Adaptation of Football Play ‘Dear England’ as BBC Unveil Slew of New Dramas Variety
- BBC announces TWELVE new dramas as broadcaster ‘takes risks and pushes boundaries’ with TV shake-up Daily Mail
Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$1.1 Trillion from Peak, to $7.87 Trillion, Lowest since May 2021. – WOLF STREET
- Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$1.1 Trillion from Peak, to $7.87 Trillion, Lowest since May 2021. WOLF STREET
- Treasury Announced How Many Bonds It Will Sell in the Months Ahead—Why You Should Care Forex Factory
- Treasury Dept. to boost bond auction size next week in refunding plan Yahoo Finance
- Tsunami of Treasury Issuance Will Shift from Longer-Term Debt to Short-Term T-Bills & 2-Year Notes amid Intense Navel-Gazing about Spiking 10-Year Yield. WOLF STREET
- Treasury-Bond Demand Is Starting to Weaken As US Plans Supply Increase Markets Insider
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Picture exclusive: Last pictures Julian Sands sent to his grandson from a snow-clad mountain peak
The family of missing movie star Julian Sands say he was doing what he loved best when he vanished – as they released the last known images of him mountaineering.
With the hunt for the British actor in the California mountains entering its sixth day, poignant photographs that he sent to his grandson show him looking relaxed and happy while climbing well above the clouds.
Mr Sands, who starred in more than 150 films and television series including A Room with a View, sent the pictures of himself climbing the Weisshorn mountain in the Swiss Alps to his grandson last September.
A family member told The Independent: “This is how he would love to be seen, doing what he loved best – a heroic mountaineer, and thrilled to send a picture of him looking so happy to share with his beloved grandson, Billy.”
And a friend described him as “a Byronesque romantic and an adventurer who is drawn to the extremes of nature, relishing the freedom of mountains”.
Sands pictured climbing the Weisshorn, said to be more serious than the Matterhorn
(Supplied)
Mr Sands was scaling a section of the 14,783ft Weisshorn when the colourful pictures were taken.
The images, which Julian sent to Billy in September and have been given exclusively to The Independent, show the father of three using climbing gear including ropes, wearing a helmet and with a rucksack strapped tightly to his back.
In one photograph, he is holding a bottle of water and turning to smile at the camera while seated on a peak.
A keen and experienced hiker, the 65-year-old once described his happiest moment as “close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning”.
Sands sent these images to his grandson
( Supplied)
The Weisshorn, a three-ridged pyramid-shaped mountain about 15 miles from the Matterhorn, is described by climbing experts as “more serious” than its famous neighbour.
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“One of the most difficult 4,000m peaks, the Weisshorn is a long and serious climb by any route,” according to Alpine Guides.
His wife, the writer Evgenia Citkowitz, reported him missing last Friday while he was out on America’s San Gabriel mountains, and a close friend told The Independent that his family were frantic with worry.
A huge search operation was launched for Mr Sands, and on Friday crews found a car believed to belong to him, which they towed away.
Henry Sands, Julian’s son and Billy’s father, joined the search in the Californian mountains alongside an experienced hiker. The West Yorkshire-born actor, who lives in north Hollywood, played journalist Jon Swain in The Killing Fields, and is also known for starring in the Merchant Ivory romance A Room with a View.
The actor loves mountain-climbing, his family say
( Supplied)
A friend told The Independent: “Julian is wild and never contained by rules or boundaries. He is a Byronesque romantic and an adventurer who is drawn to the extremes of nature, relishing the freedom of mountains which he conquers all over the world.
“He is deeply inspired by the Romantic poets and his performances of their work are spellbinding and come from a passionate love of literature.
“He is a friend bound by Homeric qualities of loyalty and living life to the full.
“He takes no prisoners and yet is as gentle and generous and sensitive as the poets he so admired.
“His total and absolute adoration is always towards his wife the novelist and screenwriter Evgenia Citkowitz by whom he has two daughters.
“And his son Henry by his first wife the journalist Sarah Sands is closely bonded to him and joined the search for him in the Californian mountains where he went missing.
“His roles are often quirky and original as he moved away from the Merchant Ivory matinee idol roles in which he has cemented himself as one of the great British stars.”
Julian Sands’s friend described him as ‘a Byronesque romantic and an adventurer’
(AP)
When he disappeared, the actor was thought to have been somewhere on the popular Baldy Bowl Trail, which climbs 3,900ft over 4.5 miles to the highest summit in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Search and rescue crews to suspend the search over the weekend because of avalanche threat, a department spokesperson told said, with authorities continuing to use drones.
In recent years, several experienced hikers have died due to Mount Baldy’s icy terrain. It’s considered one of the most dangerous peaks to climb in the US.
Prices of Existing Homes Fall 11% from Peak. Sales Hit Lockdown Low. Cash Buyers and Investors Pull Back Hard
Priced right, any home will sell. But sellers are not wanting to price their homes right.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
This is getting relentless: Sales of previously owned houses, condos, and co-ops fell by 1.5% in December from November, the 11th month in a row of month-to-month declines, and by 34% year-over-year, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales of 4.02 million homes, roughly matching the lockdown-low in May 2020, and beyond that the lowest since the depth of Housing Bust 1 in 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors today.
Priced right, just about any home will sell, but sellers are not wanting to price their homes right. And potential sellers are sitting on their vacant homes, hoping for a quick end to this downturn, or they’re putting it on the rental market or try to make a go of it as a vacation rental, rather than dealing with the reality of a mind-blowing housing bubble that has loudly popped (historic data via YCharts):
Actual sales in December – not the “seasonally adjusted annual rate” of sales – fell 36.3% year-over-year, to 326,000 homes (from 513,000 homes a year ago), according to the NAR.
The median price of all types of homes whose sales closed in November fell for the sixth month in a row, to $366,900, down 11.3% from the peak in June. This drop whittled down the year-over-year gain to just 2.3%, from a year-over-year gain of 16% in the spring of 2022.
Only a portion of this June-December price drop is seasonal: The average June-December decline over the six years before the pandemic was 5.8%, with a maximum decline of 6.4% and a minimum decline of 3.8%. This shows that the current 11.3% decline goes well beyond even the maximum seasonal decline.
Additional confirmation that much of this decline was not seasonal is provided by the rapidly shrinking year-over-year price gain, down to just 2.3%, from 16% in December 2021 through the spring of 2022 (historic data via YCharts):
In some markets, the median price has plunged a lot further. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the median price has plunged by 30% from the peak in April 2022, and by 10% year-over-year, according to the California Association of Realtors. But other markets are lagging behind, to produce the overall national average.
All-cash buyers, investors, and second home buyers pulled back massively. All-cash sales plunged by 22% year-over-year, to 92,000 homes (28% of the 328,000 homes sold), down from 118,000 in December 2021 (23% of 513,000 homes sold). In other words, buyers that pay cash didn’t want to buy these overpriced homes either, though they didn’t have to worry about getting a high-rate mortgage.
Sales to individual investors or second home buyers plunged by 27% to 52,500 homes (16% of 328,000 homes sold), from 71,800 in December 2021 (14% of 513,000 homes sold). They too pulled back from this market.
Sales of single-family houses fell by 1.1% in December from November, and by 33.5% year-over-year, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.64 million houses.
Sales of condos and co-ops fell by 4.5% in December from November, and by 38.2% year-over-year, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 420,000 units.
Sales plunged in all regions, but plunged the most in the West. Year-over-year percent change (NAR map of regions):
Active listings jumped by 55% from a year ago, to 68,900 in December (active listings = total inventory for sale minus properties with pending sales). Just before the holidays, lots of sellers pull their homes off the market, and then put them back on the market for the spring selling season. This happens every year; active listing start to drop before Thanksgiving and don’t rise again until the spring (data via realtor.com):
Active listings, though up hugely from a year ago, are still relatively low as potential sellers are determined to wait out what they expect to be a brief ripple in the market, and meanwhile they’re putting their vacant homes on the rental market and they’re trying to bring in some cash by putting their vacant home out there as a vacation rental. And many are just sitting on their vacant homes that they hadn’t sold because they’d wanted to ride up the market all the way to the top with huge gains of 20% or 30% a year. But that show is over. And now what?
Median days on the market, before the frustrated seller pulls the home off the market, or before the home is sold, rose to 67 days (data via realtor.com):
Price reductions: Active listings with price reductions hit a new high for any December in the data by realtor.com going back to 2016: 25% of the active listings in December 2022 had price reductions, up from for example 17% in the pre-pandemic December 2019.
December or January is usually the seasonal low point for price reductions. Rather than cutting prices, many sellers pull their homes off the market and wait for the spring selling season, before they re-list it. That sellers are cutting prices over the holidays to this extent shows that they’re getting a little more aggressive.
Hoping for a quick reversal of this downturn: This combination of plunging sales, dropping prices, rising active listings, rising days on the market before the home gets pulled or sold, an increase of active listings with price cuts, but still tight supply, indicates that many potential sellers are still hoping for a quick reversal of this downturn. And they’re letting the vacant home sit to wait for better days, or they’re putting it on the rental market or try to make a go of it as a vacation rental, rather than dealing with the reality of a mind-blowing housing bubble that has loudly popped.
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Millions of Chinese workers on the move ahead of Friday travel peak
BEIJING, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Millions of urban workers were on the move across China on Wednesday ahead of the expected Friday peak of its Lunar New Year mass migration, as China’s leaders looked to get its COVID-battered economy moving.
Unfettered when officials last month ended three years of some of the world’s tightest COVID-19 restrictions, workers streamed into railway stations and airports to head to smaller towns and rural homes, sparking fears of a broadening virus outbreak.
Economists are scrutinising the holiday season, known as the Spring Festival, for glimmers of rebounding consumption across the world’s second largest economy after new GDP data on Tuesday confirmed a sharp economic slowdown in China.
While some analysts expect that recovery to be slow, China’s Vice-Premier Liu He declared to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Tuesday that China was open to the world after three years of pandemic isolation.
National Immigration Administration officials said that, on average, half a million people had been moved in or out of China per day since its borders opened on Jan. 8, state media reported.
But as workers flood out of megacities, such as Shanghai, where officials say the virus has peaked, many are heading to towns and villages where unvaccinated elderly have yet to be exposed to COVID and health care systems are less equipped.
LARGE ROLLING SUITCASES, BOXES OF GIFTS
As the COVID surge intensified, some were putting the virus out of their mind as they headed for the departure gates.
Travellers bustled through railway stations and subways in Beijing and Shanghai, many ferrying large wheeled suitcases and boxes stuffed with food and gifts.
“I used to be a little worried (about the COVID-19 epidemic),” said migrant worker Jiang Zhiguang, waiting among the crowds at Shanghai’s Hongqiao Railway Station.
“Now it doesn’t matter anymore. Now it’s okay if you get infected. You’ll just be sick for two days only,” Jiang, aged 30, told Reuters.
The infection rate in the southern city of Guangzhou, capital of China’s most populous province, has now passed 85%, local health officials announced on Wednesday.
In more isolated areas, state medical workers are this week going door-to-door in some outlying villages to vaccinate the elderly, with the official Xinhua news agency describing the effort on Tuesday as the “last mile”.
Clinics in rural villages and towns are now being fitted with oxygenators, and medical vehicles have also been deployed to isolated areas.
While authorities confirmed on Saturday a huge increase in deaths – announcing that nearly 60,000 people with COVID had died in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12 – state media reported that heath officials were not yet ready to give the World Health Organization (WHO) the extra data it is now seeking.
Specifically, the U.N. agency wants information on so-called excess mortality – the number of all deaths beyond the norm during a crisis, the WHO said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.
The Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid published by the official People’s Daily, quoted Chinese experts saying the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention was already monitoring such data, but it would take time before it could be released.
Doctors in both public and private hospitals were being actively discouraged from attributing deaths to COVID, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Reporting By Bernard Orr in Beijing and Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Additional reporting By Xihao Jiang in Shanghai; Writing By Greg Torode; Editing by Michael Perry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
China COVID peak to last 2-3 months, hit rural areas next -expert
BEIJING, Jan 13 (Reuters) – The peak of China’s COVID-19 wave is expected to last two to three months, and will soon swell over the vast countryside where medical resources are relatively scarce, a top Chinese epidemiologist has said.
Infections are expected to surge in rural areas as hundreds of millions travel to their home towns for the Lunar New Year holidays, which officially start from Jan. 21, known before the pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people.
China last month abruptly abandoned the strict anti-virus regime of mass lockdowns that fuelled historic protests across the country in late November, and finally reopened its borders this past Sunday.
The abrupt dismantling of restrictions has unleashed the virus onto China’s 1.4 billion people, more than a third of whom live in regions where infections are already past their peak, according to state media.
But the worst of the outbreak was not yet over, warned Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a report published in local media outlet Caixin on Thursday.
“Our priority focus has been on the large cities. It is time to focus on rural areas,” Zeng was quoted as saying.
He said a large number of people in the countryside, where medical facilities are relatively poor, are being left behind, including the elderly, the sick and the disabled.
Authorities have said they were making efforts to improve supplies of antivirals across the country. Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) molnupiravir was made available in China from Friday.
The World Health Organization this week also warned of the risks stemming from holiday travelling.
The UN agency said China was heavily under-reporting deaths from COVID, although it is now providing more information on its outbreak.
“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China has shared relevant information and data with the international community in an open, transparent and responsible manner,” foreign ministry official Wu Xi told reporters.
Health authorities have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers which are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes and the body bags seen coming out of crowded hospitals.
China has not reported COVID fatalities data since Monday. Officials said in December they planned to issue monthly, rather than daily updates, going forward.
Although international health experts have predicted at least 1 million COVID-related deaths this year, China has reported just over 5,000 since the pandemic began, one of the lowest death rates in the world.
DIPLOMATIC TENSIONS
Concerns over data transparency were among the factors that prompted more than a dozen countries to demand pre-departure COVID tests from travellers arriving from China.
Beijing, which had shut its borders from the rest of the world for three years and still demands all visitors get tested before their trip, objects to the curbs.
Wu said accusations by individual countries were “completely unreasonable, unscientific and unfounded.”
Tensions escalated this week with South Korea and Japan, with China retaliating by suspending short-term visas for their nationals. The two countries also limit flights, test travellers from China on arrival, and quarantine the positive ones.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Friday Tokyo will continue to demand transparency, labelling Beijing’s retaliation as extremely “regrettable.”
Parts of China were returning to normal life.
In the bigger cities in particular, residents are increasingly on the move, pointing to a gradual, though so far slow, rebound in consumption and economic activity.
An immigration official said on Friday 490,000 daily trips on average were made in and out of China since it reopened on Jan. 8, only 26% of the pre-pandemic levels.
Singapore-based Chu Wenhong was among those who finally got reunited with their parents for the first time in three years.
“They both got COVID, and are quite old. I feel quite lucky actually, as it wasn’t too serious for them, but their health is not very good,” she said.
CAUTION
While China’s reopening has given a boost to financial assets globally, policymakers around the world worry it may revive inflationary pressures.
However, December’s trade data released on Friday provided reasons to be cautious about China’s recovery pace.
Jin Chaofeng, whose company exports outdoor rattan furniture, said he has no expansion or hiring plans for 2023.
“With the lifting of COVID curbs, domestic demand is expected to improve but not exports,” he said.
Data next week is expected to show China’s economy grew just 2.8% in 2022, its second-slowest since 1976, the final year of Mao Zedong’s decade-long Cultural Revolution, according to a Reuters poll.
Some analysts say last year’s lockdowns will leave permanent scars on China, including by worsening its already bleak demographic outlook.
Growth is then seen rebounding to 4.9% this year, still well below the pre-pandemic trend.
Additional reporting by the Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
How to See the 2023 Quadrantids Meteor Shower Peak Tonight in a Flurry of Fire
By Wednesday, your last best chance to see any shooting stars or fireballs for a while will be over, so plan accordingly.
The first few months of the year have a relative dearth of meteor showers, so it’s worth trying to catch the Quadrantids during their very short peak just after New Year’s.
While December is packed with opportunities to catch abundant Geminid and Ursid meteors, the Quadrantid meteor shower is the sole major shower in the first quarter of the year, and it peaks quite briefly Tuesday night and Wednesday morning this week.
Like the Geminids and Ursids, the Quadrantids are often among the strongest showers of the year, but these meteors don’t get nearly as much hype as the northern summertime Perseids in August that hit during summer vacation time for many skywatchers. Also, the window of opportunity to see Quadrantids is very narrow, with a peak of intense activity that is just six hours long this year, according to the American Meteor Society.
Other showers may have peaks that last a day or two, with a lesser but still decent amount of activity stretching for days before and after the actual peak.
Stellar 2021 Perseid meteor shower shines in shots from around the world
See all photos
If you’re hoping to catch the Quadrantids this year, there’s two factors to consider: what time the shower will be peaking in your location and how high the quadrant of the night sky where Quadrantid meteors appear to originate from will be at that time.
Predicting the exact moment of peak activity for a meteor shower offers no guarantees, but the target range for best viewing times is between 3:40 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. UTC on Jan. 4 (7:40 p.m. to 10:40 p.m. PT on Tuesday). That said, the area of the sky that Quadrantids radiate outward from is in the area of the constellation of Bootes the herdsman, and this radiant is highest in the sky between about 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. local time.
Find where these two windows overlap in the Northern Hemisphere (the radiant will be mostly below the horizon south of the equator, unfortunately) and you’ve got the best spots on the planet for observing the Quadrantids. This looks to be just about any locale in or near the North Atlantic. But again, peak predictions aren’t exact, so it’s worth venturing out to see what you can spot from just about anywhere with clear skies in Europe or North America on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.
Head outside with plenty of refreshments and warm clothes and give yourself at least an hour for the whole viewing experience. You’ll need about 15 minutes for your eyes to fully adjust and plenty of time to spot shooting stars, which inevitably seem to come in short bursts after long lulls in activity.
Lie on your back with a wide view of the clear sky and orient yourself to the northeast to face the right radiant. You can expect to see about 25 Quadrantids per hour under ideal conditions, including plenty of fleeting shooting stars and a few fireballs, if you’re lucky. You could get lucky with an outburst of Quadrantids that produces up to 120 meteors per hour, according to some predictions.
One potential challenge is that the moon will be about 92% full Wednesday morning, so you may need to adjust your viewing plan to put the bright moon at your back.
What you’re actually seeing when a Quadrantid meteor streaks across the sky is a mote or pebble-size piece of the Asteroid 2003 EH1, which some astronomers believe may be an extinct comet or a new type of object sometimes called a “rock comet.” Over the centuries, EH1 has left a trail of debris in its path and our planet passes through that stream of detritus each January.
If the weather cooperates where you are, consider making the effort to get outside and look up early Wednesday, because the next major meteor shower isn’t until April.
Samsung’s 2023 QD-OLED TVs will reach up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness
Samsung launched its QD-OLED TV lineup last year at CES promising higher brightness than other OLED TVs, particularly its arch-rival LG. However, it was only mildly brighter than LG OLEDs back then, and yesterday, LG unveiled its 2023 OLED TV lineup with up to 70 percent more brightness and peak levels reportedly hitting around 1,800 nits.
Now, Samsung Display has announced that its 2023 QD-OLED TV lineup will hit up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness, possibly pipping LG and approaching Mini-LED TVs, if accurate. That’s thanks to a new QD-OLED Panel from Samsung Display, which uses a new “HyperEfficient EL” OLED material and Samsung’s IntelliSense AI. The TVs will also be more energy efficient and offer more accurate colors, according to Samsung Display.
The new TVs will also be available in a wider range of sizes. Where the 2022 S95B came in just 55- and 65-inch sizes, you’ll be able to purchase 49-, 55-, 65- and 77-inch TVs this year. The company hasn’t announced other features, but you can expect to see Tizen OS, HDR10+ (and likely not Dolby Vision, once again), along with Bixby, Alexa and SmartThings. Pricing and availability haven’t been revealed either, but we should learn more at CES 2023 in the coming days.
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China’s stretched health system braces for peak in COVID infections
BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Dec 23 (Reuters) – China is expecting a peak in COVID-19 infections within a week, a health official said, with authorities predicting extra strain on the country’s health system even as they downplay the disease’s severity and continue to report no new deaths.
In the face of a surging outbreak and widespread protests against its “zero-COVID” regime of lockdowns and testing, China began dismantling it this month, becoming the last major country to move towards living with the virus.
Its containment measures had slowed the economy to its lowest growth rate in nearly half a century, jamming global supply chains and trade. As Chinese workers increasingly fall ill, more disruption is expected in the short term before the economy bounces back later next year.
China reported less than 4,000 new symptomatic local COVID cases nationwide for Dec. 22, and no new COVID deaths for a third consecutive day. Authorities have narrowed the criteria for COVID deaths, prompting criticism from many disease experts.
Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, was quoted in Shanghai government-backed news outlet The Paper on Thursday as saying China “is expected to reach the peak of infections within a week.”
“The peak infection will also increase the rate of severe disease, which will have a certain impact on our entire medical resources,” he said, adding the wave will last another one or two months after that.
“We must be mentally prepared that infection is inevitable.”
Nevertheless, Zhang said he had visited nursing homes around Shanghai, noticing the number of elderly dealing with severe symptoms was low.
Worries over the near-term impact of China’s COVID wave pushed stock markets in China (.SSEC), Hong Kong (.HSI) and elsewhere in Asia lower. The yuan also weakened.
Infections in China are likely to be more than a million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day, a “stark contrast” from official data, British-based health data firm Airfinity said this week.
A Shanghai hospital has estimated half of the commercial hub’s 25 million people would get infected by the end of next week. Experts say China could face more than a million COVID deaths next year.
UNPREPARED
China’s abrupt change in policy caught a fragile health system unprepared, with hospitals scrambling for beds and blood, pharmacies for drugs and authorities racing to build clinics.
More than a dozen global health experts, epidemiologists, residents and political analysts interviewed by Reuters identified the failure to vaccinate the elderly and communicate an exit strategy to the public, as well as excessive focus on eliminating the virus, as causes of the strain on China’s medical infrastructure.
[1/11] Medics move a patient into a fever clinic at a hospital as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue in Beijing, December 23, 2022. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
A drive to vaccinate the elderly that began three weeks ago has yet to bear fruit. China’s overall vaccination rate is above 90% but the rate for adults who have had booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and older, according to government data.
China spent big on quarantine and testing facilities over the past three years rather than bolstering hospitals and clinics and training medical staff, these people said.
“There is an incredible lack of preparation for the virus coming despite them having … ample warning,” said Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious diseases doctor at Rophi Clinic in Singapore.
China’s National Health Commission did not respond to requests for comment on the criticisms.
The country has nine domestically developed COVID shots approved for use, all seen as less effective than Western-made vaccines that use the new mRNA technology.
A shipment of 11,500 BioNTech (22UAy.DE) mRNA vaccines for German nationals in China have arrived at the German embassy in Beijing, an embassy spokesperson told Reuters on Friday.
The embassy hopes the first doses will be given out “as soon as possible”, the spokesperson said.
NO DATA
The World Health Organization has received no data from China on new COVID hospitalizations since Beijing lifted its zero-COVID policy. The WHO has said gaps in data might be due to Chinese authorities simply struggling to tally cases.
Amid mounting doubts about Beijing’s statistics, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said all countries, including China, need to share information on their experiences with COVID.
As COVID rages through China, residents who previously faced long periods of isolation are now learning to live with the virus.
Chinese teacher Yang Zengdong, whose whole family is isolating in their downtown Shanghai apartment, mildly ill with COVID, welcomes the change in policy. Only weeks ago, they would have all been sent to a quarantine facility, and their building would have been locked down.
“When I think of this situation my feeling is just, wow, we are so lucky because now we can isolate at home,” Yang said.
“This wave is something we have to face, because it is impossible to stay closed forever.”
Reporting by Bernard Orr in Beijing, Casey Hall and David Stanway in Shanghai, Farah Master in Hong Kong and Chen Lin in Singapore; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Lincoln Feast.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.