China has accused “some Western media” of bias and political manipulation in covering China’s abrupt dropping of COVID restrictions, that has led to a wave of new cases of the virus, the Associated Press reported. An editorial in the Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily outlined what it called China’s “optimization and control measures” and blasted reports by media outlets they didn’t identify as “completely biased hype, smear and political manipulation with ulterior motives.” The news comes as the country braces for the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts Jan. 21, and typically has people travel all over the see family.
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new U.S. COVID cases stood at 54,015 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 14% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 16% at 39,473. The average for deaths was 482, up 6% from two weeks ago. The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 668 million on Thursday, while the death toll rose above 6.73 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world with 101.8 million cases and 1,102,286 fatalities.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.