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China pledges ‘final victory’ over COVID as outbreak raises global alarm

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  • Virus spreading fast in China after policy U-turn
  • Japan latest country requiring tests from China arrivals
  • EU meeting to discuss China travel policy
  • WHO seeking data from Chinese scientists

BEIJING, Jan 4 (Reuters) – Global health officials tried to determine the facts of China’s raging COVID-19 outbreak and how to prevent a further spread as the government’s mouthpiece newspaper on Wednesday rallied citizens for a “final victory” over the virus.

China’s axing of its stringent virus curbs last month has unleashed COVID on a 1.4 billion population that has little natural immunity having been shielded from the virus since it emerged in its Wuhan city three years ago.

Funeral homes have reported a spike in demand for their services, hospitals are packed with patients, and international health experts predict at least one million deaths in China this year.

But officially, China has reported a small number of COVID deaths since the policy U-turn and has played down concerns about a disease that it was previously at pains to eradicate through mass lockdowns even as the rest of the world opened up.

“China and the Chinese people will surely win the final victory against the epidemic,” Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said in an editorial, rebutting criticism of its tough anti-virus regime that triggered historic protests late last year.

As it now dismantles those restrictions, China has been particularly critical of decisions by some countries to impose a requirement for a COVID test on its citizens, saying they are unreasonable and lack scientific basis.

Japan became the latest country to mandate pre-departure COVID testing for travellers from China, following similar measures by the United States, Britain, South Korea and others.

Health officials from the 27-member European Union are due to meet on Wednesday to discuss a coordinated response to China travel. Most European Union countries favour pre-departure COVID testing for visitors from China.

China, which has been largely shut off from the world since the pandemic began in late 2019, will stop requiring inbound travellers to quarantine from Jan. 8. But it will still demand that arriving passengers get tested before they begin their journeys.

DOUBT ON DATA

Meanwhile, World Health Organization officials met Chinese scientists on Tuesday amid concern over the accuracy of China’s data on the spread and evolution of its outbreak.

The U.N. agency had invited the scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing and to share data on hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations.

The WHO would release information about the talks later, probably at a Wednesday briefing, its spokesperson said. The spokesperson earlier said the agency expected a “detailed discussion” about circulating variants in China, and globally.

Last month, Reuters reported that the WHO had not received data from China on new COVID hospitalisations since Beijing’s policy shift, prompting some health experts to question whether it might be concealing the extent of its outbreak.

China reported five new COVID-19 deaths for Tuesday, compared with three a day earlier, bringing the official death toll to 5,258, very low by global standards.

But the toll is widely believed to be much higher. British-based health data firm Airfinity has said about 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID.

There were chaotic scenes at Shanghai’s Zhongshan hospital where patients, many of them elderly, jostled for space on Tuesday in packed halls between makeshift beds where people used oxygen ventilators and got intravenous drips.

With COVID disruptions slowing China’s $17 trillion economy to its lowest growth in nearly half a century, investors are now hoping policymakers will intervene to counter the slide.

China’s yuan hovered at a four-month high against the dollar on Wednesday, after its finance minister pledged to step up fiscal expansion this year, days after the central bank said it would implement more policy support for the economy.

BOOKING BOOM

Despite some countries imposing restrictions on Chinese visitors, interest in outbound travel from the world’s most populous country is cranking up, state media reported.

Bookings for international flights from China have risen by 145% year-on-year in recent days, the government-run China Daily newspaper reported, citing data from travel platform Trip.com.

The number of international flights to and from China is still a fraction of pre-COVID levels. The government has said it will increase flights and make it easier for people to travel abroad.

Thailand, a major destination for Chinese tourists, is expecting at least five million Chinese arrivals this year, its tourism authority said on Tuesday.

More than 11 million Chinese tourists visited Thailand in 2019, nearly a third of its total visitors.

But there are already signs that an increase in travel from China could pose problems abroad.

South Korea, which began testing travellers from China for COVID on Monday, said more than a fifth of the test results were positive.

Authorities there were hunting on Wednesday for one Chinese national who tested positive but went missing while awaiting quarantine. The person, who was not identified, could face up to a year in prison or fines of 10 million won ($7,840).

Reporting by Bernard Orr and Liz Lee in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Hyonhee Shin in Seoul and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Robert Birsel

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Netanyahu says Israel not bound by ‘despicable’ U.N. vote

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RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec 31 (Reuters) – Israel condemned and the Palestinians welcomed on Saturday a United Nations General Assembly vote asking the International Court of Justice to provide an opinion on legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The Friday vote presents a challenge for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who this week took office at the head of a government which has set settlement expansion as a priority and which includes parties who want to annex West Bank land on which they are built.

“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem and no U.N. resolution can distort that historical truth,” Netanyahu said in a video message, adding that Israel was not bound by the “despicable decision.”

Along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Palestinians seek the occupied West Bank for a state. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements there illegal, a view Israel disputes citing historical and Biblical ties to the land.

The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) also known as the World Court, is the top U.N. court dealing with disputes between states. Its rulings are binding, though the ICJ has no power to enforce them.

The U.N. General Assembly asked the ICJ to give an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation … including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

Members of Netanyahu’s new government have pledged to bolster settlements with development plans, budgets and authorisation of dozens of outposts built without permits.

The cabinet includes newly created posts and restructured roles that grant some of those powers to pro-settler coalition partners, who ultimately aim to extend Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank.

Netanyahu, however, has given no indication of any imminent steps to annex the settlements, a move that would likely shake up its relations with Western and Arab allies alike.

The Palestinians welcomed the U.N. vote in which 87 members voted in favour of adopting the request; Israel, the United States and 24 other members voted against; and 53 abstained.

“The time has come for Israel to be a state subject to law, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule in the West Bank.

Basem Naim, an official with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, said it was “an important step toward confining and isolating the state of occupation (Israel).”

Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Kim Coghill and Frances Kerry

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Taliban bans female NGO staff, jeopardizing aid efforts

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  • Taliban orders NGOs to stop female staff from working
  • Comes after suspension of female students from universities
  • U.N. says order would seriously impact humanitarian operations
  • U.N. plans to meet with Taliban to seek clarity

KABUL, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s Taliban-run administration on Saturday ordered all local and foreign NGOs to stop female employees from working, in a move the United Nations said would hit humanitarian operations just as winter grips a country already in economic crisis.

A letter from the economy ministry, confirmed by spokesperson Abdulrahman Habib, said female employees of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were not allowed to work until further notice because some had not adhered to the administration’s interpretation of Islamic dresscode for women.

It comes days after the administration ordered universities to close to women, prompting global condemnation and sparking some protests and heavy criticism inside Afghanistan.

Both decisions are the latest restrictions on women that are likely to undermine the Taliban-run administration’s efforts to gain international recognition and clear sanctions that are severely hampering the economy.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter he was “deeply concerned” the move “will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions,” adding: “Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world. This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people.”

Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan and humanitarian coordinator, told Reuters that although the U.N. had not received the order, contracted NGOs carried out most of its activities and would be heavily impacted.

“Many of our programmes will be affected,” he said, because they need female staff to assess humanitarian need and identify beneficiaries, otherwise they will not be able to implement aid programs.

International aid agency AfghanAid said it was immediately suspending operations while it consulted with other organisations, and that other NGOs were taking similar actions.

The potential endangerment of aid programmes that millions of Afghans access comes when more than half the population relies on humanitarian aid, according to aid agencies, and during the mountainous nation’s coldest season.

“There’s never a right time for anything like this … but this particular time is very unfortunate because during winter time people are most in need and Afghan winters are very harsh,” said Alakbarov.

He said his office would consult with NGOs and U.N. agencies on Sunday and seek to meet with Taliban authorities for an explanation.

Aid workers say female workers are essential in a country where rules and cultural customs largely prevent male workers from delivering aid to female beneficiaries.

“An important principle of delivery of humanitarian aid is the ability of women to participate independently and in an unimpeded way in its distribution so if we can’t do it in a principled way then no donors will be funding any programs like that,” Alakbarov said.

When asked whether the rules directly included U.N. agencies, Habib said the letter applied to organisations under Afghanistan’s coordinating body for humanitarian organisations, known as ACBAR. That body does not include the U.N., but includes over 180 local and international NGOs.

Their licences would be suspended if they did not comply, the letter said.

Afghanistan’s struggling economy has tipped into crisis since the Taliban took over in 2021, with the country facing sanctions, cuts in development aid and a freeze in central bank assets.

A record 28 million Afghans are estimated to need humanitarian aid next year, according to AfghanAid.

Reporting by Kabul newsroom; additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington
Editing by Mark Potter and Josie Kao

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U.N. council demands end to Myanmar violence in first resolution in decades

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UNITED NATIONS, Dec 21 (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council adopted its first resolution on Myanmar in 74 years on Wednesday to demand an end to violence and urge the military junta to release all political prisoners, including ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar has been in crisis since the army took power from Suu Kyi’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021, detaining her and other officials and responding to pro-democracy protests and dissent with lethal force.

“Today we’ve sent a firm message to the military that they should be in no doubt – we expect this resolution to be implemented in full,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said after the vote on the British-drafted resolution.

“We’ve also sent a clear message to the people of Myanmar that we seek progress in line with their rights, their wishes and their interests,” Woodward told the 15-member council.

It has long been split on how to deal with the Myanmar crisis, with China and Russia arguing against strong action. They both abstained from the vote on Wednesday, along with India. The remaining 12 members voted in favor.

“China still has concerns,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun told the council after the vote. “There is no quick fix to the issue … Whether or not it can be properly resolved in the end, depends fundamentally, and only, on Myanmar itself.”

He said China had wanted the Security Council to adopt a formal statement on Myanmar, not a resolution.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow did not view the situation in Myanmar as a threat to international peace and security and therefore believed it should not be dealt with by the U.N. Security Council.

Myanmar citizens who live in Thailand, hold a portrait of former Myanmar state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi as they protest against the execution of pro-democracy activists, at Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, Thailand July 26, 2022. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the resolution’s adoption. “This is an important step by the Security Council to address the crisis and end the Burma military regime’s escalating repression and violence against civilians,” he said in a statement.

‘FIRST STEP’

Until now the council had only agreed formal statements on Myanmar, where the army also led a 2017 crackdown on Rohingya Muslims that was described by the United States as genocide. Myanmar denies genocide and said it was waging a legitimate campaign against insurgents who attacked police posts.

Negotiations on the draft Security Council resolution began in September. The initial text – seen by Reuters – urged an end to the transfer of arms to Myanmar and threatened sanctions, but that language has since been removed.

The adopted resolution expresses “deep concern” at the continuing state of emergency imposed by the military when it seized power and its “grave impact” on Myanmar’s people.

It urges “concrete and immediate actions” to implement a peace plan agreed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and issues a call to “uphold democratic institutions and processes and to pursue constructive dialogue and reconciliation in accordance with the will and interests of the people”.

The only other resolution adopted by the Security Council was in 1948, when the body recommended the U.N. General Assembly admit Myanmar – then Burma – as a member of the world body.

Myanmar’s U.N. Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, who still holds the U.N. seat and represents Suu Kyi’s government, said while there were positive elements in the resolution the National Unity Government – comprised of remnants of the ousted administration – would have preferred a stronger text.

“We are clear this is only a first step,” he told reporters. “The National Unity Government calls on the UNSC (to build) on this resolution to take further and stronger action to ensure the end of the military junta and its crimes.”

Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Alex Richardson and Grant McCool

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Hearses queue at Beijing crematorium, even as China reports no new COVID deaths

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  • Queue of hearses outside Beijing crematorium
  • China reports no new deaths; some criticise its accounting
  • Beijing faces surge in severe COVID in next two weeks – expert

BEIJING, Dec 21 (Reuters) – Dozens of hearses queued outside a Beijing crematorium on Wednesday, even as China reported no new COVID-19 deaths in its growing outbreak, sparking criticism of its virus accounting as the capital braces for a surge of cases.

Following widespread protests, the country of 1.4 billion people this month began dismantling its unpopular “zero-COVID” regime of lockdowns and testing that had largely kept the virus under control for three years though at great economic and psychological cost.

The abrupt change of policy has caught a fragile health system unprepared and hospitals are scrambling for beds and blood, pharmacies for drugs, and authorities are racing to build special clinics. Experts predict China could face more than a million COVID deaths next year.

At a crematorium in Beijing’s Tongzhou district, a Reuters witness saw a queue of about 40 hearses waiting to enter while the parking lot was full.

Inside, family and friends, many wearing traditional white clothing and headbands of mourning, gathered around about 20 coffins awaiting cremation. Staff wore hazmat suits and smoke rose from five of the 15 furnaces.

There was a heavy police presence outside the crematorium.

Reuters could not verify whether the deaths were caused by COVID.

Some Beijing residents have to wait for days to cremate relatives or pay steep fees to secure faster service, funeral home workers said.

A worker at one Beijing funeral parlour posted on social media an offer of “speedy arrangement of hearses, no queue for cremation” for a fee of 26,000 yuan ($3,730).

Reuters could not verify the offer.

‘2020 MINDSET’

China uses a narrow definition of COVID deaths and reported no new fatalities for Tuesday, even crossing one off its overall tally since the pandemic began, now at 5,241 – a fraction of the tolls of many much less populous countries.

The National Health Commission said on Tuesday only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure in patients who had the virus are classified as COVID deaths.

Benjamin Mazer, an assistant professor of pathology at Johns Hopkins University, said that classification would miss “a lot of cases”, especially as people who are vaccinated, including with Chinese shots, are less likely to die of pneumonia.

Blood clots, heart problems and sepsis – an extreme body response to infection – have caused countless deaths among COVID patients around the world.

“It doesn’t make sense to apply this sort of March 2020 mindset where it’s only COVID pneumonia that can kill you,” Mazer said.

“There’s all sorts of medical complications.”

‘ACT QUICKLY’

The death toll might rise sharply in the near future, with the state-run Global Times newspaper citing a Chinese respiratory expert predicting a spike in severe cases in Beijing over the coming weeks.

“We must act quickly and prepare fever clinics, emergency and severe treatment resources,” Wang Guangfa, a respiratory specialist from Peking University First Hospital, told the newspaper.

Wang expected the COVID wave to peak in late January, with life likely to return to normal by late February or early March.

The NHC also played down international concern about the possibility of virus mutations, saying the likelihood of new strains that are more pathogenic was low.

Paul Tambyah, President of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, supported that view.

“I do not think that this is a threat to the world,” he said. “The chances are that the virus will behave like every other human virus and adapt to the environment in which it circulates by becoming more transmissible and less virulent.”

Several prominent scientists and World Health Organization advisers told Reuters a potentially devastating wave to come in China means it may be too early to declare the end of the global pandemic emergency.

SICK WORKERS

Some U.S. and European officials have offered to help mitigate a crisis they fear will hurt the global economy and disrupt supply chains.

From the epicentre in northern China, infections are spreading to manufacturing belts, including the Yangtze River Delta, near Shanghai, disrupting workforces.

Retail and financial service businesses have been hard hit by staff shortages, with factories not far behind, industry bodies say.

Staff at Communist Party and government institutions or enterprises in the southwestern city of Chongqing who have mild COVID symptoms can go to work if they wear a mask, state-run China Daily reported.

Other media reported similar decisions in other cities.

China is still largely cut off from the outside world with COVID restrictions on international travel but there are signs those rules too are easing.

Chelsea Xiang, 35, said she only needed to do two days of quarantine in southwestern city of Chengdu after returning from Hong Kong on Sunday, rather than the minimum five officially required.

“I feel I have my human rights again,” Xiang said.

Reporting by Thomas Peter, Alessandro Diviggiano, Albee Zhang, Bernard Orr, Martin Pollard, Eduardo Baptista, Joe Cash and Ryan Woo in Beijing, Casey Hall in Shanghai, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Chen Lin in Singapore; Writing by Marius Zaharia;
Editing by Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel

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China races to install hospital beds as COVID surge sparks concern abroad

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  • Authorities rush to add hospital beds, build fever clinics
  • U.S. raises concerns over possibility of COVID mutations
  • Beijing reports five more deaths on Tuesday
  • Security tight at crematoriums amid doubts over death toll

BEIJING/WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics on Tuesday as the United States said Beijing’s surprise decision to let the virus run free was a concern for the world.

China this month began dismantling its stringent “zero-COVID” regime of mass lockdowns after protests against curbs that had largely kept the virus at bay for three years but at significant costs to society and the world’s second-largest economy.

Now, as the virus sweeps through a country of 1.4 billion people who lack natural immunity having been shielded for so long, there is growing concern about possible deaths, virus mutations and the impact on the economy and trade.

“We know that any time the virus is spreading, that it is in the wild, that it has the potential to mutate and to pose a threat to people everywhere,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday, adding that the virus outbreak in China was also a concern for global growth.

Beijing reported five COVID-related deaths on Tuesday, following two on Monday, which were the first fatalities reported in weeks. In total, China has reported just 5,242 COVID deaths since the pandemic emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, a very low toll by global standards.

But there are rising doubts that the statistics are capturing the full impact of a disease ripping through cities after China dropped curbs including most mandatory testing on Dec. 7.

Since then, some hospitals have become inundated, pharmacies emptied of medicines, while many people have gone into self-imposed lockdowns, straining delivery services.

“It’s a bit of a burden to suddenly reopen when the supply of medications was not sufficiently prepared,” said Zhang, a 31-year-old delivery worker in Beijing who declined to give his full name. “But I support the reopening.”

Some health experts estimate 60% of people in China – equivalent to 10% of the world’s population – could be infected over coming months, and that more than 2 million could die.

In the capital, Beijing, security guards patrolled the entrance of a designated COVID-19 crematorium where Reuters journalists on Saturday saw a long line of hearses and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside. Reuters could not establish if the deaths were due to COVID.

‘GETTING SICK’

In Beijing, which has emerged as the main infection hot spot, commuters, many coughing into their masks, were back on the trains to work and streets were coming back to life after being largely deserted last week.

Streets in Shanghai, where COVID transmission rates are catching up with Beijing’s, were emptier, and subway trains were only half-full.

“People are staying away because they are sick or they are scared of getting sick, but mostly now, I think it’s because they are actually sick,” said Yang, a trainer at a nearly empty Shanghai gym.

Top health officials have softened their tone on the threat posed by the disease in recent weeks, a U-turn from previous messaging that the virus had to be eradicated to save lives even as the rest of the world opened up.

They have also been playing down the possibility that the now predominant Omicron strain could become more virulent.

“The probability of a sudden large mutation … is very low,” Zhang Wenhong, a prominent infectious disease specialist, told a forum on Sunday in comments reported by state media.

Nevertheless, there are mounting signs the virus is buffeting China’s fragile health system.

Cities are ramping up efforts to expand intensive care units and other facilities for severe COVID cases, the state-run Global Times reported on Monday.

Authorities have also been racing to build so-called fever clinics, facilities where medical staff check patients’ symptoms and administer medication. Often attached to hospitals, the clinics are common in mainland China and are designed to prevent the wider spread of contagious disease in hospitals.

In the past week, major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Wenzhou announced they had added hundreds of fever clinics, some in converted sports facilities.

The virus is also hammering China’s economy, expected to grow 3% this year, its worst performance in nearly half a century. Workers and truck drivers falling ill are slowing down output and disrupting logistics, economists say.

A World Economics survey showed on Monday China’s business confidence fell in December to its lowest since January 2013.

Weaker industrial activity in the world’s top oil importer has capped gains for crude prices and driven copper lower.

China kept benchmark lending interest rates unchanged for the fourth consecutive month on Tuesday.

Reporting by Bernard Orr and Xiaoyu Yin in Beijing, David Stanway in Shanghai and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Writing by John Geddie and Marius Zaharia; Editing by Robert Birsel

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China reports first COVID deaths in weeks as doubts gather over official count

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  • Beijing reports two deaths, first since Dec. 3
  • Comes after Beijing relaxed anti-virus controls
  • Citizens, analysts question official figures
  • Virus surge weighs on world’s second economy

BEIJING, Dec 19 (Reuters) – China reported its first COVID-related deaths in weeks on Monday amid rising doubts over whether the official count was capturing the full toll of a disease that is ripping through cities after the government relaxed strict anti-virus controls.

Monday’s two deaths were the first to be reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) since Dec. 3, days before Beijing announced that it was lifting curbs which had largely kept the virus in check for three years but triggered widespread protests last month.

Though on Saturday, Reuters journalists witnessed hearses lined up outside a designated COVID-19 crematorium in Beijing and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside the facility. Reuters could not immediately establish if the deaths were due to COVID.

A hashtag on the two reported COVID deaths quickly became the top trending topic on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform on Monday morning.

“What is the point of incomplete statistics?” asked one user. “Isn’t this cheating the public?,” wrote another.

The NHC did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters on the accuracy of its data.

Officially China has suffered just 5,237 COVID-related deaths during the pandemic, including the latest two fatalities, a tiny fraction of its 1.4 billion population and very low by global standards.

But health experts have said China may pay a price for taking such stringent measures to shield a population that now lacks natural immunity to COVID-19 and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.

Some fear China’s COVID death toll could rise above 1.5 million in coming months.

Respected Chinese news outlet Caixin on Friday reported that two state media journalists had died after contracting COVID, and then on Saturday that a 23-year-old medical student had also died. It was not immediately clear which, if any, of these deaths were included in official death tolls.

“The (official) number is clearly an undercount of COVID deaths,” said Yanzhong Huang, a global health specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a U.S. think tank.

That “may reflect the lack of state ability to effectively track and monitor the disease situation on the ground after the collapse of the mass PCR testing regime, but it may also be driven by efforts to avoid mass panic over the surge of COVID deaths,” he said.

The NHC reported 1,995 symptomatic infections for Dec. 18, compared with 2,097 a day earlier.

But infection rates have also become an unreliable guide as far less mandatory PCR testing is being conducted following the recent easing. The NHC stopped reporting asymptomatic cases last week citing the testing drop.

China’s stocks fell and the yuan eased against the dollar on Monday, as investors grew concerned that surging COVID-19 cases would further weigh on the world’s second largest economy despite pledges of government support.

The virus was also sweeping through trading floors in Beijing and spreading fast in the financial hub of Shanghai, with illness and absence thinning already light trade and forcing regulators to cancel a weekly meeting vetting public share sales.

Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp (6723.T) said on Monday it had suspended work at its Beijing plant due to COVID-19 infections.

SPREADING FAST

China’s chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou on Saturday said the country was in the throes of the first of three COVID waves expected this winter, which was more in line with what people said they are experiencing on the ground.

“I’d say sixty to seventy percent of my colleagues…are infected right now,” Liu, a 37-year-old university canteen worker in Beijing, told Reuters, requesting to be identified by his surname.

While top officials have been downplaying the threat posed by the new Omicron strain of the virus in recent weeks, authorities remain concerned about the elderly, who have been reluctant to get vaccinated.

Officially, China’s vaccination rate is above 90%, but the rate for adults who have received booster doses of the vaccine drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and above, according to government data.

In the Shijingshan district of Beijing, medical workers have been going door-to-door offering to vaccinate elderly residents in their homes, China’s Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

But it is not just the elderly that are wary of vaccines.

“I don’t trust it,” Candice, a 28-year-old headhunter in Shenzhen told Reuters, citing stories from friends about health impacts, as well as similar health warnings on social media. Candice spoke on condition that only her first name be used.

Overseas-developed vaccines are unavailable in mainland China to the general public, which has relied on inactivated shots by local manufacturers for its vaccine rollout.

While China’s medical community in general doesn’t doubt the safety of China’s vaccines, some say questions remain over their efficacy compared to foreign-made mRNA counterparts.

Reporting by Liz Lee, Martin Quin Pollard, Eduardo Baptista, Jing Wang and Ryan Woo in Beijing and David Kirton in Shenzhen; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

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China’s COVID spike not due to lifting of restrictions, WHO director says

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  • WHO says China’s control measures were not stopping COVID-19
  • Countries should ask are the right people sufficiently vaccinated
  • Open channels between China and WHO – Ryan

GENEVA, Dec 14 (Reuters) – COVID-19 infections were exploding in China well before the government’s decision to abandon its strict “zero-COVID” policy, a World Health Organization director said on Wednesday, quashing suggestions that the sudden reversal caused a spike in cases.

The comments by the WHO’s emergencies director Mike Ryan came as he warned of the need to ramp up vaccinations in the world’s No. 2 economy.

Speaking at a briefing with media, he said the virus was spreading “intensively” in the nation long before the lifting of restrictions.

“There’s a narrative at the moment that China lifted the restrictions and all of a sudden the disease is out of control,” he said.

“The disease was spreading intensively because I believe the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease. And I believe China decided strategically that was not the best option anymore.”

Beijing started pivoting away from its signature “zero-COVID” policy this month after protests against the economically damaging curbs championed by President Xi Jinping.

The sudden loosening of restrictions has sparked long queues outside fever clinics in a worrying sign that a wave of infections is building, even though official tallies of new cases have trended lower recently as authorities eased back on testing.

In its most recent COVID report for the week to Nov. 27, the WHO said China had reported increasing hospitalisations for four consecutive weeks.

“So the challenge that China and other countries still have is: are the people that need to be vaccinated, adequately vaccinated, with the right vaccines and the right number of doses and when was the last time those people had the vaccines,” said Ryan.

WESTERN VACCINE

The elation in China that met the changes in policy allowing people to live with the virus has quickly faded amid mounting concerns about surging infections because the population lacks “herd immunity” and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.

WHO’s senior epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said the UN agency was providing technical advice to China and Ryan said there were open channels.

Among the first major announced deals in which a Western drugmaker will supply China with COVID therapies, China Meheco Group Co Ltd (600056.SS) said on Wednesday it would import and distribute Pfizer’s (PFE.N) oral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid.

Earlier in the briefing, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “hopeful” that the pandemic, which has killed more than 6.6 million people since it emerged in Wuhan, China three years ago, will no longer be considered a global emergency some time next year.

Reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva;
Writing by Josephine Mason in London; Editing by Alison Williams, Raissa Kasolowsky, Alexandra Hudson

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Children dying in Somalia as food catastrophe worsens

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  • Famine averted for now but crisis worsening – IPC
  • ‘Children are dying now’ – UNICEF
  • U.N. funding appeal facing $1 bln shortfall

MOGADISHU, Dec 13 (Reuters) – More than 200,000 Somalis are suffering catastrophic food shortages and many are dying of hunger, with that number set to rise to over 700,000 next year, according to an analysis by an alliance of U.N. agencies and aid groups.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of food crises, said its most acute level, “IPC Phase 5 Famine”, had been temporarily averted but things were getting worse.

“They have kept famine outside of the door but nobody knows for how much longer,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson of the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA).

“That people are dying from hunger, there’s no doubt about it, but I cannot put a number on it,” he told a news briefing in Geneva after the latest IPC analysis on Somalia came out.

A two-year drought has decimated crops and livestock across Horn of Africa nations, while the price of food imports has soared because of the war in Ukraine.

In Somalia, where 3 million people have been driven from their homes by conflict or drought, the crisis is compounded by a long-running Islamist insurgency that has hampered humanitarian access to some areas.

The IPC had previously warned that areas of Somalia were at risk of reaching famine levels, but the response by humanitarian organisations and local communities had staved that off.

“The underlying crisis however has not improved and even more appalling outcomes are only temporarily averted. Prolonged extreme conditions have resulted in massive population displacement and excess cumulative deaths,” it said.

Somalia’s last famine, in 2011, killed a quarter of a million people, half of them before famine was officially declared.

Fearful of a similar or even worse outcome this time, humanitarian chiefs were quick to say the situation was already catastrophic for many Somalis.

‘STOP WAITING’

“I have sat with women and children who have shown me mounds next to their tent in a displaced camp where they buried their two- and three-year-olds,” said James Elder, spokesperson of the U.N. children’s charity UNICEF, at the Geneva briefing.

“Whilst a famine declaration remains important because the world should be past this, we also do know that children are dying now.”

The IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale has a complex set of technical criteria by which the severity of crises are measured. Its Phase 5 has two levels, Catastrophe and Famine.

The Somalia analysis found that 214,000 people were classified in Catastrophe and that number was expected to rise to 727,000 from April, 2023 as humanitarian funding dropped off.

Catastrophe is summarised on the IPC website as a situation where starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.

It said famine was projected from April onwards among agropastoral populations in the districts of Baidoa and Burhakaba, in central Somalia, and among displaced populations in Baidoa town and the capital Mogadishu.

The IPC data showed 5.6 million Somalis were classified in Crisis or worse (Phase 3 or above) and that number would rise from April to 8.3 million — about half the country’s population.

The OCHA is appealing for $2.3 billion to respond to the crisis in Somalia, of which it has so far received $1.3 billion, or 55.2%.

David Miliband, head of aid group the International Rescue Committee, said the underfunding of the appeal showed the world was not treating this as an urgent moment.

“The time for action is now in Somalia,” he told Reuters in an interview, adding that what happened in 2011 should serve as a warning. “Stop waiting for the famine declaration,” he said.

Reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Bhargav Acharya and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Sofia Christensen in Dakar and Emma Farge in Geneva; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Ed Osmond

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

China reportedly delays key economic meeting amid signs of surging infections

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  • Beijing drops key tools of ‘zero-COVID’ regime
  • Changes follow historic protests last month
  • Opening up sparks fears of infection spread

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG, Dec 13 (Reuters) – Chinese leaders have reportedly delayed a key economic policy meeting amid growing signs that COVID-19 infections are surging nearly a week after Beijing jettisoned some of the world’s toughest restrictions.

President Xi Jinping and other Politburo members and senior government figures had been expected to attend the closed-door Central Economic Work Conference, most likely this week, to chart a policy course for the embattled Chinese economy in 2023.

A Bloomberg News report on Tuesday night, citing people familiar with the matter, said the meeting had been delayed and there was no timetable for rescheduling.

The delay comes as authorities continue to overturn the previously resolute “zero-COVID” policy championed by Xi.

Long queues are appearing outside fever clinics in a worrying sign that a wave of infections is building, even though official tallies of new cases have dropped in recent weeks as authorities reduce testing.

And companies in China, from e-commerce giant JD.com to cosmetics brand Sephora, are rushing to minimise the impact of surging infections – doling out test kits, encouraging more work from home and, in some cases, procuring truckloads of medicine.

The signs come as China attempts to swiftly align with a world that has largely reopened, following unprecedented protests last month in China three years into the pandemic.

The protests were the strongest show of public defiance during Xi’s decade-old presidency and come amid growth figures for China’s $17 trillion economy that were some of the worst in 50 years.

Despite rising infections, people in China cheered the withdrawal on Tuesday of a state-mandated app used to track whether they had travelled to COVID-stricken areas.

As authorities deactivated the “itinerary code” app at midnight on Monday, China’s four telecoms firms said they would delete users’ data associated with the app.

“Goodbye itinerary code, I hope to never see you again,” said a post on social media platform Weibo, where people cheered the demise of an app that critics feared could be used for mass surveillance.

“The hand that stretched out to exert power during the epidemic should now be pulled back,” wrote another user.

And in a further sign of policy easing, Chinese healthcare company 111.inc has started selling Pfizer’s Paxlovid for COVID-19 treatment in China via its app – medicine previously only available in some hospitals.

It sold out just over half an hour after the listing was reported by local media, according to the platform’s customer service.

For all the relief over last week’s decision to begin overturning the government’s zero-COVID policy, there are fears that China may now pay a price.

[1/11] People wearing face masks walk on a street, as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue in Shanghai, China, December 13, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song

Infections are expected to rise further during the Chinese New Year holiday next month, when people travel across the country to be with their families, – a risk for a 1.4 billion population that lacks “herd immunity” and has relatively low vaccination rates among the elderly, according to some analysts.

The moves made last week to unwind the COVID curbs included dropping mandatory testing prior to many public activities and reining in quarantine.

HONG KONG RELAXES

Beijing’s envoy to the United States on Monday said he believes China’s COVID-19 measures will be further relaxed in the near future and international travel to the country will also become easier.

China has all but shut its borders to international travel since the pandemic first erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in later 2019. International flights are still at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels and arrivals face eight days in quarantine.

Financial hub Hong Kong, which already has less stringent border controls than mainland China, on Tuesday said it would drop a requirement for incoming travellers to avoid bars and restaurants in the three days after arrival.

Hong Kong will also scrap its mobility-tracking app governing access to restaurants and venues such as gyms, clubs and salons, Chief Executive John Lee said.

While the lifting of controls is seen as brightening the prospects for global growth longer term, analysts say Chinese businesses will struggle in the weeks ahead, as a wave of infections creates staff shortages and makes consumers wary.

Analysts say the decline in reported new cases could reflect the dropping of testing requirements rather than the actual situation on the ground.

“The rapid surge of infections in big cities might be only the beginning of a massive wave of COVID infections,” said Ting Lu, Chief China Economist at Nomura.

“We reckon that the incoming migration around the Chinese New Year holiday in late January could bring about an unprecedented spread of COVID.”

Experts say China’s fragile healthcare system could be quickly overwhelmed if those fears are realised.

In Beijing, empty seats on commuter trains and deserted restaurants highlight some people’s caution.

“Maybe other people are afraid or are worried about kids’ and grandparents’ health. It’s a personal choice,” Gao Lin, a 33-year-old financier, told Reuters.

China stocks (.CSI300) edged lower on Tuesday as a recent rebound triggered by reopening hopes gave way to concerns about spreading infections. The yuan currency was little changed, but it is already set for its worst year since 1994, when China unified the official and market exchange rates.

Reporting by Bernard Orr in Beijing, Brenda Goh and Shen Yiming in Shanghai and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Writing by John Geddie and Greg Torode; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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