As China experiences its first winter without strict COVID-19 restrictions since the outbreak of the pandemic three years ago, a wave of respiratory illnesses is sweeping across the country.
The unusual rise in cases has prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to prod China for additional information on the outbreak and seek enhanced response measures. Although the cause of this trend is unclear, some health experts are attributing it to a common and temporary aftereffect of lifting lockdown restrictions, even as unanswered questions around the infections and the country of their spread have led others to draw parallels with the early days of the pandemic.
