China's latest COVID-19 outbreak is 'a concern to the rest of the world', says US

The United States took notice of China’s alarming COVID-19 surge and said that it hopes the country’s authorities can address and tackle the outbreak. On Monday, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price was asked during a press briefing if the department has gauged anything about the recent COVID-19 spike in China.

He was also questioned about whether the US is concerned about China potentially concealing the actual infection and death toll figures of the virus. Responding to it, Price said that the Department of State is not an “epidemiological agency.” “I am not going to be in a position to offer those sorts of figures from here,” he said.

“But when it comes to the current outbreak in China, we want to see this addressed. We hope our Chinese partners, the Chinese are able to address it, and we hope for several reasons,” he added. Price then went on to elucidate how any outbreak in a country can create ripples across the world.

“First and foremost, any time there is death and illness anywhere around the world, we want to see a situation like that come to an end. When it comes to COVID, secondly, we know that any time the virus is spreading, that it is in the wild, it has the potential to mutate and to pose a threat to people everywhere,” Price said. 

The spokesperson highlighted that the US is, therefore, focused on providing assistance to countries to eradicate COVID-19.  "We've seen that over the course of many different permutations of this virus and certainly another reason why we are so focused on helping countries around the world address COVID," he said.

Why China's COVID-19 surge could have a global impact

Explaining his third point, Price said that the death toll in China is particularly worrisome because of the giant size of the country’s economy. "The toll of the virus is of concern to the rest of the world given the size of China's GDP, given the size of China's economy. It's not only good for China to be in a stronger position vis-a-vis COVID but it's good for the rest of the world as well," Price said.

Meanwhile, as China faces an alarming rise in infections after easing its restrictions and abandoning its zero-COVID policy, a new study has forecasted that the current situation in the country could cause nearly one million deaths in the future. According to projections by a group of professors at the University of Hong Kong, up to 684 people could die due to the virus out of one million. Therefore, with China’s total population of 1.4 billion, 964,400 deaths could occur across the nation, CNN reported.