- Alcaraz, Sinner breeze into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Bagnaia wins Japan MotoGP sprint to cut Martin's lead
- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
- Padres pitcher Musgrove needs elbow surgery
- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
- Boston beat Denver in NBA exhibition season opener, but Jokic says omens are good
- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
- Devine leads New Zealand to big win over India in Women's T20 World Cup
- Bosnia floods kill 16 people
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Prosecutors seek dismissal of rape charges against French rugby players
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- Bolivia's Morales says claims he raped a minor are a 'lie'
- MLB Reds hire two-time champion Francona as manager
- Daniel Maldini receives first Italy call-up for Nations League
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- Ancelotti points finger at Madrid's 'lack of intensity'
- Haiti reeling after 70 killed in gang attack
- Five Czech kids in hospital over TikTok 'piercing challenge'
- What happens next in Iran-Israel conflict?
- Country star Garth Brooks denies rape accusations
- Stubbs hits maiden century as South Africa make 343-4 against Ireland
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Odegaard injury has forced Arsenal to be 'different', says Arteta
- Ratcliffe refuses to guarantee Ten Hag's Man Utd future
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Mauritius to hold legislative election on November 10
- Britain qualify for America's Cup final after 60-year wait
- IMF asks Sri Lanka to protect hard-won gains
- Morata returns to Spain Nations League squad after injury
- Irish regulator to probe Ryanair use of facial recognition
- Public allowed to see video evidence in France mass rape trial
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- Under-fire Ten Hag 'together' with Man Utd hierarchy
- Guardiola talks of Man City love affair as financial hearing rumbles on
- De Bruyne out of Belgium Nations League squad
- Japanese trainer Yahagi hopes Shin Emperor achieves 50-year-old Arc dream
- UK's Starmer hails 'landmark' carbon capture funding
- As EU targets Chinese cars, European rivals sputter
WHO says China's zero-Covid strategy unsustainable
China's flagship zero-Covid strategy to defeat the pandemic is unsustainable, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, adding that it had told Beijing so and called for a policy shift.
China has imposed draconian measures, trapping most of Shadnghai's 25 million people at home for weeks as the country combats its worst outbreak since the pandemic began.
The Shanghai lockdown has caused outrage and rare protest in the last major economy still glued to a zero-Covid policy, while movement in the capital Beijing has been slowly restricted.
"When we talk about the zero-Covid strategy, we don't think that it's sustainable, considering the behaviour of the virus now and what we anticipate in the future," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference.
"We have discussed about this issue with Chinese experts and we indicated that the approach will not be sustainable.
"Transiting into another strategy will be very important."
There is a pressing political dynamic to China's virus response, with President Xi Jinping pegging the legitimacy of his leadership on protecting Chinese lives from Covid.
Xi has doubled down on the zero-Covid approach, despite mounting public frustration.
- Rights, society and economy -
Shanghai is China's economic dynamo and its biggest city. The zero-Covid policy has winded an economy which just months ago had been bouncing back from the pandemic.
"We need to balance the control measures against the impact they have on society, the impact they have on the economy, and that's not always an easy calibration," said WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan.
He said any measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic should show "due respect to individual and human rights".
Calling for "dynamic, adjustable and agile policies", Ryan said early responses to the crisis in many countries showed that a lack of adaptability "resulted in a lot of harm".
He reflected on how the world's most populous nation had had relatively very few deaths officially ascribed to Covid, and therefore had "something to protect".
Given the rapid rise in deaths since February-March, "any government in that situation will take action to try and combat that", he told reporters.
Tedros has been discussing adjusting according to the circumstances to find an exit strategy, "in depth and in detail with Chinese colleagues", Ryan said.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on Covid-19, said that worldwide, it was impossible to stop all transmission of the virus.
"Our goal, at a global level, is not to find all cases and stop all transmissions. It's really not possible at this present time," she said.
"But what we need to do is drive transmission down because the virus is circulating at such an intense level."
G.M.Castelo--PC