China clings to zero-COVID policy; Pfizer touts booster for kids

Today China reported 29,317 new COVID-19 cases, which include 26,318 asymptomatic cases. Shanghai has 85.7% of the symptomatic cases and 95.5% of the asymptomatic cases, according to officials.The latest numbers, which come as Shanghai's 26 million residents continue a 2-week-long lockdown, raise suspicion among COVID-19 experts."There's simply no way what they are reporting is what is happening," said Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, who directs the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), publisher of CIDRAP News.The proportion of asymptomatic cases defies biological logic, he said, and to report that Shanghai's death toll is so low is a misrepresentation when Hong Kong currently has the highest per capita death rate in the world.During a January to March surge in Omicron cases, Hong Kong recorded 5,906 COVID-19 deaths.

That contrasts starkly with Shanghai, where health officials maintain that no residents have died during the Omicron surge and only 1 case out of 250,000 recorded since Mar 1 required medical treatment."Why would no one be dying in mainland China?" Osterholm asked. "Unfortunately, this adds to the lack of trust in China's ability to report public health."At the end of January, Osterholm had said China's commitment to a zero-COVID policy was flawed in the face of Omicron, which is too transmissible to contain with lockdowns and early pandemic mitigation strategies."Earlier efforts by China worked, because they were containing a forest fire," Osterholm said. "But Omicron is the wind.

You can't contain the wind."Earlier this week President Xi Jinping said his country was still committed to zero COVID, as videos of Shanghai residents screaming from their apartments