Chinese local governments are facing a new challenge in the battle against COVID: they are running out of cash needed to finance mass testing and enforce quarantine, CNN reported on Friday. The zero-COVID policy kept China out of recession in 2020, but now the bills are mounting, placing financial strain on municipal authorities across the world’s most populous nation, said CNN.
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again with the daily average up 22% on Thursday from two weeks ago to 49,070, according to a New York Times tracker The daily average for hospitalizations was up 21% at 33,708, while the daily average for deaths is up down 3% to 274. Globally, the confirmed case tally rose above 644.1 million on Friday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins, while the death toll is above 6.63 million with the U.S leading the world with 98.9 million cases and 1,081,147 fatalities.
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