The glittering metropolis of Shanghai is entering its sixth week of government-mandated lockdowns as China pursues its COVID-zero strategy despite widespread skepticism about its efficacy and growing protests from exhausted residents.
Beijing put the kibosh on any hopes the World Health Organization had for further research in China on how the pandemic began.
China was certified today by the World Health Organization as officially free of malaria, joining a club of 40 countries globally, but only three others in the WHO Western Pacific region, that have completely eliminated the disease.
The G7 world leaders concluded their first in-person summit since the beginning of the pandemic by criticizing China over several issues, including human rights. They also agreed to compete with China in infrastructure and vaccine distribution in developing countries.
While the dominant origins theory for COVID-19 involves a natural source and no laboratories, the exact way that the pandemic began remains unknown. Some prominent scientists are becoming more skeptical of China’s denials of a lab leak, and want to see more records from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine is the first Chinese-made shot to ever be approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization. The step affirms China’s growing scientific power, but is expected to have limited impact on vaccine supply in the short term.
After the WHO released a report that raised more questions than answers about the origins of COVID-19, Beijing pushed back against accusations that it had interfered in the inquiry. The Chinese Foreign Ministry then suggested that the Fort Detrick biological lab in the U.S. should be investigated next.
WHO scientists had arguments in Wuhan over access to detailed patient data. But they appear to disagree about whether those debates amount to a “refusal” by China to share information essential to tracing the origin of COVID-19.
The WHO went to Wuhan, and Beijing is happy.
China is heightening its barriers to Australian imports in a pressure campaign that began in April, after Australia started to call for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. Meanwhile, Beijing is working to limit the independence of an expected WHO-led team.