The United States on Tuesday indicated it stands ready to assist China with its surging COVID-19 outbreak, warning that an uncontrolled spread there may have implications for the global economy.
"We're prepared to continue to support countries around the world, including China, on this and other COVID-related health support," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a daily press briefing. "For us this is not about politics, this is not about geopolitics," he said.
Asked if the United States had offered to provide China with vaccines, Price said: "I'm not going to go into private discussions, but we've made the point many times publicly that we are the largest donor of COVID-19 vaccines around the world."
China this month began dismantling its stringent "zero-COVID" policy of lockdowns and testing after protests against curbs that had kept the virus at bay among its 1.4 billion-strong population for three years but at a big cost to society and the world's second-largest economy.
On Tuesday, cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics as authorities reported five more deaths and international concern grew about Beijing's surprise decision to let the virus run free.
Price repeated Washington's stance that it wants Beijing to defeat this outbreak not only for the sake of China but for the rest of the world. "We also note that what happens in China does have implications for the global economy," he added.
Leading scientists and World Health Organization (WHO) advisors on Tuesday told Reuters that it may be too early to declare the end of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency phase because of China's potentially devastating upcoming wave.
Price also warned against a new variant evolving from China's outbreak. "We also know that whenever the virus is spreading anywhere widely in an uncontrolled fashion, it has the potential for variants to emerge."
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Daphne Psaledakis and Costas Pitas; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler)
