Turning to our health lead
now and fears over
China's COVID crisis worsening
amid the Lunar New Year celebrat
The Chinese government,
of course, basically closed the
international borders for three
while not taking critical steps
to get the best vaccines
and prepare its hospitals.
The country's health care system
has now been overwhelmed by a su
in COVID cases
ever since they abandoned their
COVID policy last month.
The government.
As CNN's Ivan Watson reports for
now, since that abrupt change,
China went from reporting
just 37 deaths in a month
to admitting that the number
was closer to 60,000
a population on the move.
Attention paid
after three years of restriction
due to their government's war on
Chinese can finally travel again
just in time for the upcoming
Lunar New Year holiday.
In pre-pandemic times, this was
as the world's largest
annual human migration
I haven't been home
in three years,
says this man at the main Beijin
train station.
Millions of Chinese people are t
as COVID 19 spreads out of contr
Chinese officials say COVID infe
have passed their peak
in many parts of the country,
but there are clearly still conc
about the scale of the outbreak.
For example, here
in Hong Kong, authorities requir
all of these travelers
arriving on high speed trains
from mainland China.
To get negative COVID tests firs
before they can cross the border
Last month, Beijing
abruptly scrapped its strict
zero COVID policy.
The ensuing surge of sick
people
putting a strain on hospitals
and health workers.
Several social media videos show
sick with COVID collapsing on th
But then
I felt unwell,
says this nurse, and Shen Dong.
It had been a week that I had CO
Until that day when I finally co
Over the weekend,
health officials
who once prided themselves on
keeping COVID
out of China,
abruptly raised the COVID death
since early December,
from several dozen COVID deaths
60,000 people killed by COVID.
But the official U-turn on COVID
has had other unintended consequ
At a factory in
Chongqing, workers
pelted police
with what appeared
to be boxes of COVID tests.
Some biotech companies
withholding salaries
or laying off workers
after the government suddenly st
demanding the population
take millions of COVID tests a d
The implementation of zero COGAT
and the abrupt and unprepared ma
in which it was abandoned
I mean,
speaks to a chronic governance f
One of China's richest
provinces, Guangdong,
spent around
$22 billion over three years
on pandemic prevention.
A lot of these
local governments are highly ind
They've got big cash flow proble
This is a big problem
that the central government
and local governments
will have to sort out
in this coming decade.
But COVID
just kind of made it worse, real
For now,
uncertainty over public health
and government
finances has done
little to dampen
a palpable sense of excitement.
Understandable
as Chinese emerge from pandemic
to celebrate the year of the Rab
The biggest holiday of the year
You know, Jake, I
think it'll
be some time before we can reall
the cost of three years of this
failed zero COVID policy.
And now this abrupt whiplash
where you've got
maybe 85% of the population
in some cities
and provinces getting COVID now.
The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping,
he had fresh comments
on the pandemic today.
He said that the country has ent
entered a new phase of the COVID
19 response
and that tough challenges remain
But the light of hope is right i
of the country.