The U.S. is concerned China’s runaway COVID-19 outbreak might spawn new mutations of the virus, as the world’s most populous country continues to grapple with the impact of loosening “COVID zero” protocols that had kept the pandemic at bay.
“When it comes to the current outbreak in China, we want to see this addressed,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a briefing on Monday. “We know that anytime the virus is spreading in the wild that it has the potential to mutate and to pose a threat to people everywhere.”
Chinese cities are witnessing a wave of COVID-19 cases, with concerns growing that the government may be hiding the true toll of the virus after years of insisting that the Communist Party had handled the virus more skillfully than the West. On Monday, police and security guards pushed journalists back from a Beijing crematorium.
