The head of the World Health Organization has said China's zero-tolerance Covid-19 policy is not sustainable given what is known of the disease, in rare public comments by the UN agency on a government's handling of the virus. "We don't think that it is sustainable considering the behaviour of the virus," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing.
Speaking after Tedros, WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said the impact of a "zero-Covid" policy on human rights also needs to be taken into consideration alongside the effect on a country's economy from any Covid policy.
He also noted that China has registered 15,000 deaths since the virus first emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019 - a relatively low number compared with 999,475 in the United States and more than 500,000 in India.
With that in mind, it is understandable, Mr Ryan said, that one of the world's most populous countries would want to take tough measures to curb coronavirus contagion.