With exactly three months to go until the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, health officials in the capital and elsewhere are taking extreme measures to quash the latest Delta-driven spike in COVID-19. How long will China hold out as the last “COVID zero” country?
The 90-day review of U.S. intelligence on COVID-19 origins, which was completed in August, was highly inconclusive and even discounted several points cited by lab-leak theory proponents, according to a newly declassified summary. Beijing did not respond to the contents of the report, which it dismissed as “political and false.”
Pandemic control authorities locked down Disney’s biggest amusement park in China and mass tested all staff and visitors. It may have been a horrible way to spend Halloween for the people stuck in line for a swab test instead of a rollercoaster ride, but the action received widespread support on Chinese social media.
For the fourth time this year, Chinese health authorities are taking swift measures to contain a small Delta-driven spike of COVID-19. With just over 100 days until the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the capital announced especially strict requirements for visitors to enter.
A woman tested positive for COVID-19 in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin. She was hospitalized, leaving her pet cats alone at home. They tested positive for COVID-19, and were euthanized. Social media users called it an act of “astounding cruelty.”
China has received internal pushback from the IOC and various national Olympic committees about potential quarantine measures for athletes.
Also: Will China pivot to mRNA vaccines?
In June 2021, China was declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization. Here’s how the country rid itself of the mosquito borne disease.
China’s health authorities are sticking with their strict playbook to contain and eliminate outbreaks of COVID-19. After over 1,200 were infected since July 20 in a Delta-driven spike, zero local infections were again officially reported for August 22.