Coronavirus Update: China announces its first COVID deaths in months
China’s zero-COVID strategy was back in the headlines on Monday, after the country announced its first COVID deaths in nearly six months, announced new restrictions in the capital Beijing and locked down the largest district in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou.
In Guangzhou, public transit was suspended and residents are required to present a negative test if they want to leave their homes, according to a separate AP report. “The medical system will probably be paralyzed when faced with mass cases,” one doctor in a public hospital in Wuhan, central China, where the pandemic started nearly three years ago, reportedly told the FT.In the U.S., known cases of COVID were flat on Sunday with the daily average standing at 40,588, according to a New York Times tracker, up 1% from two weeks ago. Cases are currently rising in about half the states and falling in the rest, but some are seeing sharp spikes.