Tag Archives: VACCIN

World

China’s stretched health system braces for peak in COVID infections

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  • COVID infections may peak next week – Chinese health official
  • China reports no new COVID deaths for 3rd day
  • China still ill-prepared for major outbreak – experts

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.

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World

First foreign COVID vaccines head to China from Germany

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  • Batch of BioNTech shots on the way to China
  • German citizens will get shot; Berlin pushes for wider use
  • Shipment comes after Scholz visit to China last month
  • Comes as infections spike in world’s No. 2 economy

BERLIN, Dec 21 (Reuters) – Berlin has sent its first batch of BioNTech (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 vaccines to China to be administered initially to German expatriates, a German government spokesperson said on Wednesday, the first foreign coronavirus vaccine to be delivered to the country.

No details were available on the timing and size of the delivery, although the spokesperson said Berlin is pushing for foreigners other than German nationals, estimated at about 20,000, to be allowed access to the shot if they want it.

The shipment comes after China agreed to allow German nationals in China to get the shot following a deal during Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit in Beijing last month, with the German leader pressing for Beijing to allow the shot to be made freely available to Chinese citizens as well.

In a letter to be sent to German citizens in mainland China, the government said it would offer basic immunisations and booster shots of vaccines approved for use in the European Union for free to anyone over 12 years of age.

Family members of other nationalities would not be included. Vaccinations for children under 12 may follow at a later date.

“We are working on the possibility that besides Germans also other foreigners can be vaccinated with BioNTech,” the spokesperson told journalists in Berlin.

The shots will be delivered to German companies in China as well as embassy locations and talks are underway with other EU governments about getting them to citizens of other nationalities, a source familiar with the situation said.

China would need to approve expanding access beyond German nationals, the source said.

In return, Chinese citizens in Europe can be vaccinated with China’s SinoVac (SVA.O), the spokesperson said.

The comment comes after a report earlier this month that Germany’s health ministry had granted a permit allowing China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine to be imported to Germany to be given to Chinese citizens in that country.

The shot has not been approved for use by Europe’s drug regulator, but the World Health Organization has given its green light for its use.

Beijing has so far insisted on using only domestically produced vaccines, which are not based on the Western mRNA technology but on more traditional technologies.

The shipment comes amid Beijing dismantling its strict “zero-COVID” regime of lockdowns, which has led to a surge of cases that caught a fragile health system unprepared.

Experts predict that the country of 1.4 billion people could face more than a million COVID deaths next year.

Allowing German expats access to a Western shot is a big gesture to Berlin, reflecting Beijing’s effort to strengthen ties with EU’s biggest economy after years of tensions over trade and climate between the two countries.

Shares in BioNTech rose on news of the shipment, closing 2.3% higher in Frankfurt while Pfizer shares in New York were up 1.25% in late morning New York trade.

BioNTech was not immediately available to comment on the situation on Wednesday.

China is stuck between rising Covid-19 cases and stalled vaccination rates

NO WESTERN SHOTS

China has nine domestically developed COVID vaccines approved for use, more than any other country. But none has been updated to target the highly infectious Omicron variant, as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna (MRNA.O) have for boosters in many developed countries.

The two shots developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are the most widely used around the world.

Early on in the pandemic, BioNTech struck a deal with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (600196.SS) with a view to supply the shots to greater China.

While the shots became available in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the regulatory review for mainland China has not been concluded. BioNTech has said that decision was up to Chinese regulators and has not given a reason for the delay.

China’s zero-COVID policy and lockdown measures have kept death and infection rates minimal over the past months but caused massive disruptions both domestically and in global trade and supply chains.

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.

Reporting by Thomas Escritt, Alexander Ratz and Christian Kraemer; additional reporting by Danilo Masoni in Milan and Amanda Cooper in London;
Writing by Miranda Murray;
Editing by Josephine Mason and David Evans

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomas Escritt

Thomson Reuters

Berlin correspondent who has investigated anti-vaxxers and COVID treatment practices, reported on refugee camps and covered warlords’ trials in The Hague. Earlier, he covered Eastern Europe for the Financial Times. He speaks Hungarian, German, French and Dutch.

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World

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

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Streets deserted in China’s cities as new COVID surge looms

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  • People take steps to protect themselves after curbs lifted
  • Senior official predicts three waves this winter
  • Lunar New Year in January to drive further spread

BEIJING, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Streets in major Chinese cities were eerily quiet on Sunday as people stayed home to protect themselves from a surge in COVID-19 cases that has hit urban centres from north to south.

China is in the first of an expected three waves of COVID cases this winter, according to the country’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou. Further waves will come as people follow the tradition of returning en masse to their home areas for the Lunar New Year holiday next month, he said.

China has not reported any COVID deaths since Dec. 7, when it abruptly ended most restrictions key to a zero-COVID tolerance policy following unprecedented public protests. The strategy had been championed by President Xi Jinping.

As part of the easing of the zero-COVID curbs, mass testing for the virus has ended, casting doubt on whether official case numbers can capture the full scale of the outbreak. China reported some 2,097 new symptomatic COVID infections on Dec. 17.

In Beijing, the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has already hit services from catering to parcel deliveries. Funeral homes and crematoriums across the city of 22 million are also struggling to keep up with demand amid staff shortages as workers and drivers call in sick.

At Beijing’s largest funeral parlour in Babaoshan, also known for handling the bodies of top Chinese officials and leaders, several hearses a minute could be seen entering on Sunday, while the parking area for private cars was also full.

“Right now it is difficult to book a hearse so many relatives transport the body with their own vehicles,” said an employee on condition of anonymity.

Smoke billowed out of crematoriums, where groups of people were gathered to collect the ashes of the deceased. It was not immediately clear to what extent a rise in COVID-related deaths was responsible.

Social media posts also showed empty subways in the city of Xian in China’s northwest, while in Shanghai, the country’s commercial hub, there was none of the usual bustle in the run up to the New Year.

“Festive vibes are missing,” said a resident who gave her name as Alice.

In Chengdu, streets were deserted but food delivery times were improving, said a resident surnamed Zhang, after services began to adapt to the recent surge in cases.

Getting hold of antigen test kits was still difficult however, she said, explaining that she had been told the kits she ordered recently had been diverted to hospitals.

‘1 PEAK, 3 WAVES, 3 MONTHS’

In Shanghai, authorities said schools should move most classes online from Monday, and in nearby Hangzhou most school grades were encouraged to finish the winter semester early.

In Guangzhou, those already doing online class as well as pre-schoolers should not prepare for a return to school, said the education bureau.

Speaking at a conference in Beijing on Saturday, chief epidemiologist Wu of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the current outbreak would peak this winter and run in three waves for about three months, according to a state media report of his speech.

The first wave would run from mid-December through mid-January, largely in cities, before a second wave would start from late January to mid-February next year, triggered by the movement of people ahead of the week-long New Year holiday.

China will celebrate Lunar New Year starting on Jan. 21. The holiday normally sees hundreds of millions of people travelling home to spend time with family.

A third wave of cases would run from late February to mid-March as people returned to work after the holiday, Wu said.

In eastern Zhejiang province, home to many high-tech companies and industry, the first wave is expected to peak around mid-January, though it could be earlier, health officials told a press briefing on Sunday.

“This period coincides with the Lunar New Year, and population movement will speed up the spread of the epidemic,” said Chen Zhong, executive deputy director of the provincial epidemic control taskforce.

A U.S.-based research institute said this week that the country could see an explosion of cases and over a million people in China could die of COVID in 2023.

Wu said severe cases had declined compared with past years and vaccination had offered a certain degree of protection. The vulnerable should be protected, he said, while recommending booster vaccines for the general public.

While China rolled out its first COVID vaccines in 2021, vaccination rates among people aged 60 and above have remained little changed since the summer, according to official figures.

Only 66.4% of people over the age of 80 have completed a full course of vaccination, official news agency Xinhua reported.

Reporting by Siyi Liu, Dominique Patton, Ryan Woo, Eduardo Baptista and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

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

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Positive Moderna, Merck cancer vaccine data advances mRNA promise, shares rise

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CHICAGO, Dec 13 (Reuters) – An experimental cancer vaccine from Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) based on the messenger RNA (MRNA) technology used in successful COVID-19 vaccines has been shown to work against melanoma, sending Moderna shares more than 20% higher and driving up of other biotechs working on similar treatments.

A combination of Moderna’s personalized cancer vaccine and Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda cut the risk of recurrence or death of the most deadly skin cancer by 44% compared with Keytruda alone in a mid-stage trial, the companies said on Tuesday.

The result was considered a “statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement,” the companies said.

Moderna shares were up nearly 23% at $202.80 on Tuesday, while Merck’s shares rose 1%. Shares of BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE), which also has successful mRNA vaccine technology, were up 6%, and tiny Gritstone Bio Inc (GRTS.O), which has a cancer vaccine in development, jumped 20% to $3.09.

The study is the first randomized trial to show that combining mRNA vaccine technology with a drug that revs up the immune response would offer a better result for melanoma patients and potentially for other cancers.

“It’s a tremendous step forward in immunotherapy,” Eliav Barr, Merck’s head of global clinical development and chief medical officer, said in an interview.

Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said in a separate interview that the combination “has the capacity to be a new paradigm in the treatment of cancer.”

The ongoing study involved 157 patients with stage III/IV melanoma whose tumors were surgically removed before being treated with either the drug/vaccine combo or Keytruda alone with the aim of delaying disease recurrence.

The combination was generally safe and demonstrated the benefit compared with Keytruda alone after a year of treatment. Serious drug-related side effects occurred in 14.4% of patients who received the combination compared with 10% with Keytruda alone.

A PROMISING FIELD

In October, Merck exercised an option to jointly develop and commercialize the treatment, known as mRNA-4157/V940, sharing costs and any profits equally. Merck and Moderna plan to discuss the results with regulatory authorities and start a large Phase III study in melanoma patients in 2023.

The Merck/Moderna collaboration is one of several combining powerful drugs that unleash the immune system to target cancers with mRNA vaccine technology. They are designed to target highly mutated tumors.

The personalized vaccine works in concert with Merck’s Keytruda, a so-called checkpoint inhibitor designed to disable a protein called programmed death 1, or PD-1, that helps tumors to evade the immune system.

To build the vaccine, researchers took samples of patients’ tumors and healthy tissue. After analyzing the samples to decode their genetic sequence and isolate mutant proteins associated only with the cancer, that information was used to design a tailor-made cancer vaccine.

When injected into a patient, the patient’s cells act as a manufacturing plant, producing perfect copies of the mutations for the immune system to recognize and destroy.

Moderna’s personalized vaccine can be made in about eight weeks, a time frame the company eventually hopes to halve, Burton said.

Barr said the companies intend to study the approach in other highly mutated cancers, such as lung cancer. Other such cancers include bladder cancers and some breast cancers.

Moderna mRNA rival BioNTech has several cancer vaccine trials in the works including one with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York testing a personalized vaccine in combination with Roche’s (ROG.S) Tecentriq in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Gritstone is testing a personalized, self-amplifying mRNA vaccine in combination with Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMY.N) immunotherapies Opdivo and Yervoy in a midstage trial in patients with advanced solid tumors.

Experts said the personalized vaccines were among several promising cancer vaccine ideas in the works after many failures in the field.

“In general, I think cancer vaccines are kind of at a tipping point, and there are going to probably be a lot of vaccines coming down the pipeline in the next five years,” said Dr. Mary Lenora Disis, director of the UW Medicine Cancer Vaccine Institute in Seattle.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the speed, ease and safety of mRNA vaccines, they came out of years of cancer vaccine research, Disis said.

Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Michael Erman in New Jersey and Aditya Samal in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer, Edwina Gibbs and Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

As China starts dismantling ‘zero-COVID’ controls, fears of virus grow

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  • Biggest relaxation of curbs since pandemic began
  • Cities urge citizens to stay vigilant
  • Analysts say China ill-prepared for big spike in cases

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – As many Chinese embraced new freedoms on Thursday after the country dropped key parts of its tough zero-COVID regime, there was mounting concern that a virus, which had largely been kept in check, could soon run wild.

Three years into the pandemic, many in China had been itching for Beijing to start to align its rigid virus prevention measures with the rest of the world, which has largely opened up in an effort to live with the disease.

Those frustrations boiled over into widespread protests last month, the biggest show of public discontent since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.

Without saying it was a response to those protests, some cities and regions began relaxing COVID controls, in moves that heralded a nationwide loosening of the rules unveiled by the National Health Commission on Wednesday.

The NHC said infected people with mild symptoms can now quarantine at home and it dropped the need for testing and health status checks on mobile apps for a variety of activities including travelling around the country.

Domestic ticket sales for tourist and leisure spots have soared, according to state press, while some people took to social media to reveal they had tested positive for the virus – something that had previously carried heavy stigma in China.

Others expressed caution.

“I know COVID is not so ‘horrifying’ now, but it is still contagious and will hurt,” said one post on the Weibo platform. “The fear brought to our heart cannot be easily dissipated.”

“Too many positives!” said another Weibo user.

China reported 21,439 new local COVID-19 infections on Dec. 7, down slightly from the previous day and below a peak of 40,052 cases on Nov. 27. Cases have been trending lower recently as authorities across the country dropped testing requirements.

Various multi-million dollar projects to build testing laboratories across the country, from Shandong province in the east to Sichuan in the southwest, have been scrapped as China has cut down the need for testing, reported Shanghai government-backed news outlet The Paper.

China and Hong Kong stocks lifted Asian equity markets on Thursday, as these still cautious steps towards reopening were seen giving the world’s second largest economy a chance to regather momentum.

China’s yuan , which has also recovered some ground against the dollar in recent weeks, was little changed on Thursday.

ILL-PREPARED

China’s most populous city Shanghai, which endured one of the country’s longest and harshest lockdowns, on Thursday dropped the need for COVID tests to enter restaurants or entertainment venues.

There has been no mention of China’s “zero-COVID” policy in recent announcements, raising suspicions that the term is becoming defunct as the government gradually moves the country toward a state of living with the virus.

Top officials have also been softening their tone on the dangers posed by the virus.

But, while adopting the new more relaxed controls, some cities urged residents to remain vigilant.

“The general public should maintain a good awareness of personal protection, and be the first responsible person for their own health,” Zhengzhou, the central city home to the world’s largest iPhone factory, said in a message to residents.

It urged residents to wear masks, maintain social distancing, seek medical attention for fever and other COVID symptoms and, especially for the elderly, to get vaccinated.

Some analysts and medical experts say China is ill-prepared for a major surge in infections, partly due to low vaccination rates among vulnerable, older people and its fragile healthcare system.

“It (China) may have to pay for its procrastination on embracing a ‘living with COVID’ approach,” Nomura analysts said in a note on Thursday.

Infection rates in China are only around 0.13%, “far from the level needed for herd immunity”, Nomura said.

Feng Zijian, a former official in China’s Center for Disease Control, told the China Youth Daily that up to 60% of China’s population could be infected in the first large-scale wave before stabilising.

“Ultimately, around 80%-90% of people will be infected,” he said.

The country will probably face a large-scale outbreak in the next one to two months, state-owned magazine China Newsweek reported on Thursday citing health experts.

China’s current tally of 5,235 COVID-related deaths is a tiny fraction of its population of 1.4 billion, and extremely low by global standards. Some experts have warned that toll could rise above 1.5 million if the exit is too hasty.

But, even with the dangers, for many there is an acceptance that life must go on.

“It’s impossible to kill this virus completely, maybe just live with it and hope it will evolve into flu,” said Yan, a 22-year-old unemployed Beijing resident, who said he hoped a further opening up of China’s economy would help him find work.

Reporting by Ella Cao, Bernard Orr, Ryan Woo and Albee Zhang and the Beijing newsroom and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

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World

China loosens anti-COVID restrictions in policy shift

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  • National Health Authority announces 10 new measures
  • China to hold news conference on COVID steps at 0700 GMT
  • Residents rush to buy drugs, fearing virus spread

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – China said on Wednesday it would allow COVID patients with mild symptoms to isolate at home as part of a set of new measures that marked a major shift in a tough anti-virus policy that has battered its economy and sparked historic protests.

The relaxation of rules, which also include dropping a requirement for people to show negative tests when they travel between regions, came as top officials toned down warnings about the dangers posed by COVID-19.

That has raised prospects that Beijing may slowly look to align with the rest of the world and start re-opening its economy three years into a pandemic, which erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Investors were quick to cheer the prospect of a reprieve for the world’s second largest economy and the possibility of a shift towards a lifting of border controls next year.

“This change of policy is a big step forward,” said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.

“I expect China will fully reopen its border no later than mid 2023.”

China is due to hold a press conference at 3.00 pm (0700 GMT) on “optimising” its COVID control measures, state media reported, after President Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the Communist Party’s Politburo on Tuesday.

Cities across China were gripped by protests over tough COVID policies late last month, in what was the biggest show of public discontent since Xi came to power in 2012.

While those protests petered out in days amid a heavy police presence, cities and regions around the country started announcing a mish-mash of easing measures that fed expectations for Wednesday’s announcement.

Many of the steps taken by individual cities or regions were reflected in the list of policy changes issued by the National Health Authority on Wednesday.

But the looser curbs have set off a rush for preventative drugs as some residents, particularly the unvaccinated elderly, feel more vulnerable to the virus.

Authorities across the country have warned of tight supplies and price gouging from retailers in recent days.

“Please buy rationally, buy on demand, and do not blindly stock up,” the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration was quoted as saying in the state-owned Beijing Evening News.

In Beijing’s upmarket Chaoyang district, home to most foreign embassies as well entertainment venues and corporate headquarters, shops were fast running out of some those drugs, according to a resident.

“Last night the medicines were already in stock, and now many of them are out of stock,” said Zhang, a 33-year-old educationist, who only gave his surname.

“Epidemic preventions have been lifted…COVID-19 testing sites are mostly being dismantled… So, because right now in Chaoyang district cases are quite high, it is better to stock up on some medicines,” he said.

Reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Sophie Yu, Ryan Woo, Bernard Orr and the Beijing newsroom; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Beijing drops COVID testing burden as wider easing beckons

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  • Tests no longer needed for supermarkets, offices
  • Latest in a mix of nationwide easing steps
  • Curbs sparked widespread protests last month
  • New national rules due as soon as Weds – sources

BEIJING, Dec 6 (Reuters) – People in China’s capital Beijing were allowed to enter parks, supermarkets, offices and airports without showing proof of a negative COVID-19 test on Tuesday, the latest in a mix of easing steps nationwide after last month’s historic protests.

“Beijing readies itself for life again” read a headline in the government-owned China Daily newspaper, adding that people were “gradually embracing” their newfound freedoms.

Authorities have been loosening some of the world’s toughest COVID curbs to varying degrees and softening their tone on the threat of the virus, in what many hope could herald a more pronounced shift towards normalcy three years into the pandemic.

“This might be the first step towards reopening from this pandemic,” Hu Dongxu, 27, told Reuters as he swiped his travel card to enter a train station in Beijing, which has also dropped the need for tests to ride the subway.

Both of the city’s airports also no longer require people to test to enter the terminal, state media reported on Tuesday, although there was no indication of changes to rules requiring passengers to show negative tests prior to boarding.

But further loosening beckons after a string of protests last month that marked the biggest show of public discontent in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.

China may announce 10 new national easing measures as early as Wednesday, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The prospect of further relaxation of the rules has sparked optimism among investors that the world’s second biggest economy would regather strength, and help to boost global growth.

The Chinese yuan has risen about 5% against the dollar since early November on expectations of an eventual reopening of China’s economy.

But on the ground, many people have been slow to adapt to the changing rules. Commuter traffic in major cities such as Beijing and Chongqing has remained at a fraction of normal levels.

Some people remain wary of catching the virus, especially the elderly, while there is concern about the strain the loosening could put on China’s fragile health system.

“My parents are still very cautious,” said James Liu, 22, a student in Shenzhen in the southern province of Guangdong, where authorities “abruptly” dropped testing requirements for entry into the family’s residential compound.

China has reported 5,235 COVID-related deaths as of Monday, but some experts have warned that toll could rise above 1 million if the exit is too hasty.

[1/7] People line up at a nucleic acid testing site to get tested for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Beijing, China December 6, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo

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Analysts at Nomura estimate that areas now under lockdown represent around 19.3% of China’s total GDP, equivalent to the size of India’s economy but down from 25.1% last Monday.

This marks the first decline in Nomura’s closely watched China COVID lockdown index since the start of October.

Meanwhile, officials continue to play down the dangers posed by the virus, bringing China closer to what other countries have been saying for more than a year as they dropped restrictions and opted to live with the virus.

Tong Zhaohui, director of the Beijing Institute of Respiratory Diseases, said on Monday that the latest Omicron variant of the disease had caused fewer cases of severe illness than the 2009 global influenza outbreak, according to Chinese state television.

China’s management of the disease may be downgraded as soon as January, to the less strict Category B from the current top-level Category A of infectious disease, Reuters reported exclusively on Monday.

“The most difficult period has passed,” the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary published late on Monday, citing the weakening pathogenicity of the virus and efforts to vaccinate 90% of the population.

Hu Xijin, a prominent commentator and former editor-in-chief of state-run tabloid Global Times, called for more measures to allow people to travel freely around the country.

“The general direction for the return to normal life is already very clear, and it is essential to restore the free movement of people across provinces to restore the economy,” he wrote in a blog post on Monday.

Analysts now predict China may reopen the economy and drop border controls sooner than expected next year, with some seeing it fully open in spring.

But more than half of Chinese say they will put off travel abroad even if borders reopen tomorrow, according to a survey of 4,000 consumers in China by consultancy Oliver Wyman.

But for all those wary of returning to normality, there are others clamouring for more freedoms.

“Let’s implement these policies quickly,” a Beijing-based lawyer surnamed Li wrote on WeChat, reacting to Tuesday’s announcement of the drop in testing requirements in the capital.

“Our lives and work have been affected for so long.”

Reporting by Ryan Woo, Martin Quin Pollard, Bernard Orr and the Beijing newsroom; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Edmund Klamann

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Health

Measles now an imminent global threat due to pandemic, say WHO and CDC

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Nov 23 (Reuters) – There is now an imminent threat of measles spreading in various regions globally, as COVID-19 led to a steady decline in vaccination coverage and weakened surveillance of the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. public health agency said on Wednesday.

Measles is one of the most contagious human viruses and is almost entirely preventable through vaccination. However, it requires 95% vaccine coverage to prevent outbreaks among populations.

A record high of nearly 40 million children missed a measles vaccine dose in 2021 due to hurdles created by the COVID pandemic, the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a joint report.

While measles cases have not yet gone up dramatically compared to previous years, now is the time to act, the WHO’s measles lead, Patrick O’Connor, told Reuters.

“We are at a crossroads,” he said on Tuesday. “It is going to be a very challenging 12-24 months trying to mitigate this.”

A combination of factors like lingering social distancing measures and cyclical nature of measles may explain why there has not yet been an explosion of cases despite the widening immunity gaps, but that could change quickly, said O’Connor, pointing out the highly contagious nature of the disease.

The WHO has already seen an increase of large disruptive outbreaks since the start of 2022, rising from 19 to almost 30 by September, O’Connor said, adding that he was particularly worried about parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Reporting by Raghav Mahobe in Bengaluru and Jennifer Rigby in London; Editing by Maju Samuel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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