The US is concerned that China’s runaway Covid-19 outbreak could cause new mutations of the virus as the world’s most populous country continues to grapple with the impact of easing “Covid Zero” protocols pandemic at bay.
“When it comes to the current outbreak in China, we want this addressed,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a briefing Monday. “We know that when the virus spreads in the wild, it has the potential to mutate and pose a threat to people everywhere.”
Chinese cities are witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases, with growing concern that the government may be hiding the true toll of the virus after years of insisting that the Communist Party handled the virus more skillfully than the West. On Monday, police and guards pushed journalists back from a crematorium in Beijing.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Price’s comments.
Covid-19 U-turn
The outbreak has grown following the government’s decision to lift a series of strict restrictions, including quarantine and isolation protocols, that had largely isolated China’s 1.4 billion people from the worst effects of the Covid-19 pandemic .
China’s turnaround on Covid-19 followed protests in numerous Chinese cities in late November after containment measures were blamed for deaths following a fire in the country’s western Xinjiang region.
Health authorities, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were looking for new variants such as delta or omicron, as Covid-19 waves hit several countries around the world. New variations “allow the virus to spread more easily or make it resistant to treatments or vaccines,” according to the CDC.
The US – which is sending a delegation led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing early this year – hopes that China can bring the current Covid-19 outbreak under control, in part because any further blow to the Asian nation could further harm the world. economy, Price said.
“The toll of the virus is of concern to the rest of the world given the size of China’s GDP,” he said. “It is not only good for China to be stronger in the face of Covid, but also for the rest of the world.”
(This story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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