Disinfection aspect. these are also very key pillars of controlling covid, notjust testing and notjust reliant on vaccines because we know those strategies are not enough by itself against these highly evasive in some variant. thank ou ve evasive in some variant. thank you very much- in iran, the well known film actress taraneh alidoosti has been arrested, as anti government protests continue into a fourth month. an iranian news agency said ms alidoosti, who s best known for her starring role in the oscar winning iranian film, the salesman, was detained for publishing what it called false and distorted content and inciting chaos. ms alidoosti publicly condemned the first execution of a protester earlier this month. meanwhile the suspicious death of another young woman has provoked new outrage. 36 year old aida rostami had been helping people wounded in the unrest in a neighbourhood in the west
Been using ba.i bivalent which is also very outdated, so i think the issue is that the virus has mutated substantially and the vaccines currently are just not, the muscular vaccines are just not very good against infection anymore against omicron. they are still good and decent against hospitalisation but china has a very low booster rate especially in the elderly and i think the mucosal vaccines are not rolled out enough. the thing is, masks, n95s masks are underused in china. masks are a variant diagnostic and china isjust not using the ventilation aspect. these are also very key pillars of controlling covid, notjust testing and not just reliant on vaccines because we know those strategies are not enough
The number of covid cases has not been confirmed, but according to an informal survey by chinese search engine baidu, 70% of beijing, a city of 22 million people, is infected. they stopped counting asymptomatic cases, there has also been a transition to use of antigen tests which are not associated with the laboratory, they are being done at home so just like the issues we ve been having in the united states and globally, when you switch to antigen tests you don t have that situational awareness so our best bet is going to be understanding what is happening in the hospitals. even the chinese authorities admit they don t know what the numbers are. the national health commission, which is china s top health body, has had to admit that there has been a breakdown in the testing and reporting systems across china, so they are not even quite sure what the true numbers are, but anecdotally many people are reporting that everybody they know has covid.
Where covid has been allowed to spread, we ve seen the virus evolve and we have seen these different mutations and different variants. in china where it has not been allowed to spread, are they seeing these variants or are they seeing a more original strain? the original strain is almost extinct. they are seeing different omicron sub variants, bf.7 which is a subtype of ba.5. china has not rolled out any updated boosters, unlike the us and many european countries, although in the uk for example they have
Meanwhile, in china s largest city, shanghai, officials have ordered most schools to take classes online as covid cases soar. nurseries and childcare centres will close from monday, according to the education bureau. the authorities have stepped up vaccinations, including the option of inhalable boosters to speed up distribution. the authorities have stepped up vaccinations, including the option of inhalable boosters to speed up distribution. however, a past emphasis on lockdowns, rather than vaccinations, means that older people are at risk. sufficiently vaccinated is the question, and unfortunately that is a relatively low percentage, particularly with elderly people. and, you know, to understand why, i think in the time of severe lockdowns, we have had nearly three years of china being severely locked down and that was the containment measure, so people had a sort of false sense of security. there are concerns that china s health infrastructure is not equipped to deal with the rapid