China's pneumonia scare: Transparency please
China, where covid broke out in November 2019, is in the spotlight again. The World Health Organization (WHO) has asked the country for details on an increase in respiratory illnesses and reported clusters of pneumonia in children. Its northern parts have had a hospitalization surge, as Chinese health officials disclosed on 13 November.
Authorities attributed the increase to a lifting of pandemic curbs and the circulation of multiple known pathogens. In a recent statement, the WHO noted an increase in influenza-like ailments compared to the same autumn of the past three years in China’s north. The United Nations’ health agency is not yet sure of the cause.
Anything lung related may raise suspicions of long covid, but it could simply be “immunity debt"—incurred by reduced exposure to common infections during lockdowns. The latter would fit neatly into Beijing’s narrative. As we saw with the Sars-CoV-2 outbreak in Wuhan, though, China suffers several pathologies of authoritarian states, such as a fear of speaking up.
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