Widespread protests across China over the government’s zero-COVID policy dominated headlines on Monday, with Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, weighing in with the view that the strategy makes zero public health sense. China’s biggest challenge is low vaccination rates — and a vaccine that has not been “particularly effective at all” compared with the ones used in the West made by Pfizer [s; pfe], German partner BioNTech and Moderna .
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again with the daily average standing at 41,997 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 6% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 4% at 29,053, while the daily average for deaths is up 4% to 330. Globally, the confirmed case tally rose above 641.6 million on Monday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins, while the death toll is above 6.63 million with the U.S leading the world with 98.6 million cases and 1,079,199 fatalities.
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