China Continues Battling Worst COVID-19 Outbreak of Pandemic

China’s national health officials said Friday the nation is continuing to battle the country’s worst COVID-19 outbreak of the pandemic, with more than 56,000 new cases counted since March 1.

The officials told a news briefing in Beijing that more than half of those cases have been recorded in northeastern Jilin province and include asymptomatic cases.

At the same briefing in Beijing, the infectious disease expert for the China Center for Disease Control, Wu Zunyou, said officials contend the so-called "zero-COVID" strategy remains “the most economical and most effective prevention strategy against COVID-19.”

The strategy relies on lockdowns and mass testing, with close contacts often being quarantined at home or in a central government facility. The health officials said they are rolling out rapid antigen testing to supplement the current mass-testing strategy.

The strategy is being applied in the nation’s largest city, Shanghai, which this week posted record-high case counts in a surge of the highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Meanwhile, nearby South Korea is also facing its worst COVID-19 outbreak of the pandemic, with nearly 9 million cases reported since early February.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency ((KDCA)) reported 339,514 new cases Friday, down from 395,597 Thursday and 490,881 Wednesday, which was the second-highest daily caseload of the pandemic. The nation set its all-time high for daily cases the previous Thursday, with 621,205.

Officials say Friday’s new infections raise South Korea’s total caseload to 11,162,232, for the pandemic.

Meanwhile, The European Union’s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency ((EMA)) announced Thursday it was recommending an antibody medication developed by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca be authorized for use to prevent COVID-19 in adults and adolescents 12 and older.

In a statement, the EMA advised the new drug, marketed as Evusheld, be administered to people before they have been exposed to COVID-19, to prevent future infections. The agency cited data from a study showing the drug to be 77 percent effective at preventing infections, though they say it may be less so against the omicron variant.

The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, will consider the drug for authorization. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared Evusheld in December for people with serious health problems or allergies, who cannot get adequate protection from vaccination, while Britain authorized its use last week.