Beijing is not sharing the data of the new sweeping invasion of the coronavirus in the country, while a UN agency is preparing to meet again with Chinese scientists today
By Athena Papakosta
On the one hand, China, which keeps its health reality a closely guarded secret, and on the other, the West, which three years after the pandemic is fortifying itself with travel restrictions to avoid the nightmare of a “pandemic No. 2”
The meeting of the European Union’s Crisis Response Mechanism is over and the die has been cast in favor of recommending mask use and 48-hour testing for everyone traveling from China. This decision will surely not please Beijing which has already warned of countermeasures.
The health situation in China is going from bad to worse. Chinese health officials believe the wave of coronavirus sweeping the vast Chinese country has already peaked. The country’s Health System is under pressure and images of despair and misery reminiscent of 2020 are going around the world. Patients crammed into every room as well as the corridors, either lying on beds and stretchers or sitting in wheelchairs and chairs. On Social Media, videos show relatives burning their dead in front yards since the crematoria are full and the wait is long.
The World Health Organization (WHO) remains vigilant with its chief, Tedros Gebregesus, publicly expressing concern about the spike in infections and urging China to quickly and regularly provide data on hospitalizations and deaths in the country. Beijing, however, does not share the data of the new sweeping invasion of the coronavirus in the country, while a UN agency is preparing to meet again with Chinese scientists today for the broader information of the Member States of the Organization on the health situation in the country.
According to the scientific data analysis company, airfinity, it is estimated that up to two million cases of coronavirus and 14,700 deaths are recorded in China every day. Beijing, however, has announced only 22 deaths from the coronavirus since December, while it has stopped publishing the daily number of cases. THE Mike Ryanthe director of WHO’s Emergency Management Agency, in a press conference on Wednesday emphasized that “the current numbers published by China do not represent the real impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, ICU admissions, especially in terms of deaths”.
Beijing has eased restrictions and measures, with Chinese health and non-health authorities literally overnight abandoning the zero-case policy, which amounted to a blanket curfew at regular intervals and for long periods of time in major cities and entire Chinese provinces. For analysts, China has wasted valuable time. She spent, they say, three years during which she was limited to… confining her citizens to the four walls of their homes, neglecting to vaccinate them and postponing until tomorrow the upgrading of the national health system. From this equation of mistakes, the analysts do not even remove the sudden opening of society, noting that there was no planning and, therefore, no preparation for the next day. Naturally, the Chinese returned to 2023 as if it were 2019, only now they did not even have developed natural immunity.
The rest of the planet, which criticized Beijing’s strict zero covid policy, is now looking anxiously at China and is trying with measures imposed during the early stage of the pandemic, (Spring 2020) to avoid the risk of a new worldwide spread of the coronavirus. Travel protection measures top every list of measures in a dozen countries that have already begun to fortify themselves to ward off the risk of new, deadlier variants of the coronavirus emerging within their borders. The airlines, however, do not hide their annoyance at all. In particular, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and specifically its director general, Willie Walsh he stressed that such “ineffective restrictions” have been shown to have “delayed the peak of the pandemic by only a few days”.
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
