The director of the World Health Organization (WHO) cataloged China’s current anticovid policy, commonly known as “zero covid”, as “unsustainable”.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the international organization, assured that he had expressed his position to the authorities of the Asian giant and added that he believed that “change would be quite important” .
“When we talk about the zero covid strategy, we believe it is sustainable taking into account the behavior of the virus today and what we anticipate for the future”, said the officer.
“We have discussed the matter with Chinese experts. And we have indicated to them that management [covid cero] will not be sustainable… I think a change would be quite important”, he added.
Unlike many other countries, China is following a zero covid strategy with the aim of eradicating the virus from the country completely.
Under the measures to achieve this objective, the authorities keep citizens under strict quarantine seeking to prevent the spread of the virus.
Under strict measures, almost 25 millions of people remain closed in your homes in the city of Shanghai.
The extension of the measures, at your time, has triggered some protests by the population in the city, something unusual under the strict communist government of the Asian giant, according to the agency Reuters.
Balance
The WHO’s director of emergencies, Mike Ryan, added that health authorities must take into account the impact that a zero covid policy can have on the human rights of the population.
“We have always said as WHO that We must balance the control measures against the impact they have on society, on the economy, and that balance is not always easy to achieve ”, Ryan said.
In addition, he highlighted that the total number of deaths reported by China since the beginning of the pandemic, 05.000, is “relatively low” when or compare to the nearly 1 million deaths in the US, 100. in Brazil and more than 524. in India.
For the technical leader of the WHO for the response to covid, Maria Van Kerkhove, it is currently impossible to completely stop the transmission of the virus.
“Our goal, globally, is not to find all cases and stop all transmissions. It really isn’t possible at the moment”.
“But what we have to do is lower the transmission levels given that the virus is circulating at such an intense level”, added Van Kerkhove.
China’s zero covid measures have been criticized by scientists and citizens, at a time when a large Most nations have begun a slow transition to life before the pandemic.
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