The head of the World Health Organization on Tuesday said China's extreme approach to containing the coronavirus is unsustainable because of the highly infectious nature of the Omicron variant, but that "regarding their choice of policies, it is up to every country to make that choice."
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"We know the virus better and we have better tools, including vaccines, so that's why the handling of the virus should actually be different from what we used to do at the start of the pandemic," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. He added that the virus had changed significantly since it was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, when China largely attempted to stop its spread with lockdowns.
The ruthless and often chaotic implementation of the zero-COVID policy in China has stirred considerable resentment and food shortages in Shanghai, where some residents have been under lockdown for six weeks.
WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said the agency recognized that China had faced a difficult situation with COVID-19 recently and commended authorities for keeping the number of deaths to a very low level. "We understand why the initial response of China was to try and suppress infections to the maximum level [but] that strategy is not sustainable and other elements of the strategic response need to be amplified," he said. Ryan added that vaccination efforts should continue and emphasized that "a suppression-only strategy is not a sustainable way to exit the pandemic for any country."
