Last week, huge protests against the severe COVID-19 restrictions in China erupted in numerous cities, in the biggest show of opposition to the ruling Communist party in decades. The WHO has previously described China’s “zero-COVID” strategy as “not sustainable, ” saying that the super-infectious omicron variant made trying to stop every single case of COVID impossible. Ryan said using imported messenger RNA vaccines, like those made by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna, would be a “solid option” for China to boost its immunization coverage. China’s home-grown vaccines have proven to be less effective and scientists say any protection they provided is likely to have faded with the emergence of omicron. Numerous public health officials have warned that China’s zero-COVID strategy, which involves locking down entire communities if infections are found, serves little purpose given how easily the omicron variant spreads.

Source: thestar December 02, 2022 15:37 UTC