Health minister defends country-specific testing as necessary due to ‘absence of comprehensive information’ on Covid’s spread in China
Earlier, Butler told Channel Seven’s Sunrise that Australia’s decision “reflects decisions that have been taken across the world by countries in North America, in Europe and across Asia”.“… for example, by Japan, by India, South Korea, Malaysia and others,” he said. “So this, we think, is a balanced decision, a modest decision, but it will start to ensure that we have better information about what is happening in China right now.
On Thursday Prof Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases physician, told Guardian Australia a lack of transparency about Covid in China was worrying because “we don’t know what variants are circulating in China at the moment … [and] whether those variants are different in terms of their response to vaccination”.
The end of China’s zero-Covid approach comes as case numbers surge, with low vaccination rates especially among elderly people. Ascertaining the spread and severity of Covid is more difficult than ever as Beijing has“They’ve changed very quickly from a zero-Covid approach to completely relaxing things, so maybe that’s happened too quickly to keep up,” said Dwyer, who was one of the experts
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