WHO praises China for vaccination against Covid and indicates change of tone

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The director of immunization of the World Health Organization (WHO), Kate O’Brien, praised China this Friday (20) for what she called “enormous progress and effort” in the campaign to vaccinate against Covid-19 in the elderly, traditionally the most vulnerable part of the population to severe cases of the disease.

According to the director, Beijing is on its way to reach all elderly people with primary and booster doses, even though it faces difficulties in communication. This is because part of the target population in China finds it difficult to understand the changes in coping policy and is hesitant to seek immunization.

Despite the caveats, O’Brien’s speech changes the tone of the WHO’s statements about Covid in China in recent months. In the first week of 2023, a commission of experts from the entity went to Beijing and met behind closed doors with Chinese scientists.

The conclusions presented were that no new variant of the coronavirus had been identified —as feared by the countries that had been imposing sanctions against Chinese travelers—, but that China would be failing to show the real impact of the new health crisis that took shape after the end of Covid zero restrictions.

After demanding more transparency from Beijing, the WHO said it had received data that, in practice, confirmed the thesis of underreporting. The numbers indicated, for example, a variation of 7,100% between the total number of deaths officially confirmed by China and that indicated by the WHO survey.

The discrepancy was, according to the entity’s management, due to the “very strict definition” of death from Covid used by the Chinese authorities – which attributed to the coronavirus only those deaths in which there was necessarily a picture of respiratory failure.

Between criticism and praise, China reopened its borders, a move that brings optimism for the recovery of the economy, but at the same time increases fears about the high circulation of the virus in the country. Added to this concern are the Chinese New Year holidays, marked by the displacement of millions of people from large urban centers to rural areas, considered more vulnerable to the crisis.

Another important change in this period was the admission by China of almost 60,000 deaths from Covid in just over a month from the end of the most severe restrictions. The number ten times greater than the official figure recorded so far indicated a new change in the Chinese concept of death from the coronavirus, as the diagnosis of Covid was extended to a wider range of patients. Even so, it is estimated that the total number of deaths remains underreported.

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