The European Union has offered free COVID-19 vaccines to China, the EU executive said on Tuesday, as infections there surged following Beijing’s relaxation of its “zero-COVID” policies.
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State media in China played down the severity of a surge of COVID-19 infections ahead of an expected briefing on Tuesday by its scientists to the World Health Organization, which is hoping for a “detailed discussion” on the evolution of the virus.
European Union government health officials will hold talks on Wednesday on a coordinated response to the surge in COVID-19 infections in China, the Swedish EU presidency said on Monday, after December talks concluded with no decisions on the matter.
France on Sunday urged European Union peers to test Chinese travelers for COVID after Paris decided to do so amid an outbreak sweeping the country.
In response to the surge of COVID-19 in the People’s Republic of China and given the limited epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data available on these cases, the Government of Canada intends to put in place certain temporary health measures for air travelers entering Canada from China.
Chinese state-media have railed against the growing number of foreign governments imposing COVID tests on travelers from China, calling the measures “discriminatory.”
The European Union should consider immediately scaling up genomic sequencing of COVID-19 infections and monitoring of waste water, including from airports, to detect any new variants given the virus surge in China, the bloc’s health chief said.
As COVID-19 infections surge in China, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering sampling wastewater taken from international aircraft to track any emerging new variants, the agency told Reuters.
After China scrapped three years of zero-COVID curbs in 30 days, setting off a massive wave of infections, Beijing’s policymakers face an immense challenge to treat the sick and minimize deaths while winning back public trust dented by previous policies.
Around 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID-19, UK-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday, nearly doubling its estimate from a week ago, as infections ripped across the world’s most populous nation.
