Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said at a press conference in Geneva that China’s current Covid strategy is unsustainable given everything we know about the coronavirus.
“Given the behavior of the virus, we don’t think it will be sustainable,” the WHO Director-General said of the Chinese authorities’ epidemic management strategy.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on February 12, 2021 in Geneva.
Photo: Christopher Black/AFP
China’s epidemic management strategy, known as Covid, aims to reduce the number of daily infections to zero as quickly as possible. Therefore, even after a single case of infection has been recorded, masses of people may be placed in quarantine, for example, if they live in the same residential area with the infected person or have been in contact with the virus carrier.
After the Director-General’s speech, Mike Ryan, Director of Emergencies at the World Health Organization, spoke about the impact of the lack of Covid on human rights and the country’s economy as well.
15,000 deaths have been reported from China since the virus was first detected in Wuhan in February 2019, a relatively low number compared to the nearly 1 million deaths in the United States or India, where more than half a million have died. With all that in mind, it is understandable that the world’s most populous country is trying very hard to prevent the spread of the virus, Ryan said.
Shanghai has been bribed since early April, parks in Beijing have also been closed in recent days and public transportation has been completely suspended in those parts of the capital where most infected people have been registered. (MTI)
