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China registers its first two deaths from covid-19 in more than a year, something that puts the country’s “covid zero” strategy in trouble. With these two deaths, the official balance rises to 4,638 fatalities since China first detected the coronavirus in the central city of Wuhan. The state-controlled media barely mentioned them.
Concern returns to China. The Asian giant has registered its first two deaths from covid-19 in more than a year this Saturday, amid a rebound in the pandemic linked to the omicron variant that puts the country’s “covid zero” strategy in trouble. The National Health Commission notified the first two deaths since January 26, 2021, both registered in the northeastern province of Jilin, the most affected by this wave that has caused the confinement of millions in several cities.
With these two deaths, the official balance rises to 4,638 fatalities since China first detected the coronavirus in the central city of Wuhan in December 2019. The two new deaths were buried in the daily report of the Health Commission and the state-controlled media barely mentioned them.
Authorities in Jilin later said that both victims were men, aged 65 and 87, and both had underlying health problems associated with their advanced age.
“Covid zero” with nuances
Thanks to a severe “covid zero” strategy, consisting of tight border controls, long quarantines for international arrivals and early lockdowns, China has managed to keep the virus at bay since the end of the first wave.
But the contagious omicron variant is putting this strategy in trouble. The world’s most populous country has gone from reporting less than a hundred cases a day three weeks ago, to a minimum of more than 1,000 cases a day during the last week.
These are very low incidences compared to other countries, but not negligible in China, whose communist leadership has made the management of the pandemic a matter of capital importance.
For Beijing, the low rate of infections and mortality compared to most countries in the world prove the strength of its governance model. In recent weeks, some official sources have suggested that China will have to start living with covid-19 at some point, as most countries in the world have done.
President Xi Jinping said on Thursday that the country should persist in its “zero covid” strategy to “stop the spread of the epidemic as quickly as possible”, but also called for “minimizing the impact of the epidemic on economic development and Social”.
Thus, if on previous occasions complete confinements were decreed for any outbreak, local authorities opted for more varied and less drastic strategies.
With AFP
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