After three years of its “Zero COVID” policy, the Chinese government allowed a return to relative normalcy for its citizens in early December 2022. Due to the ongoing transmission of Omicron and its numerous COVID subvariants in China, the sudden policy shift was accompanied by rapid community transmission across the country and high numbers of severe COVID cases.

Almost a million young lives are taken every year by a single disease — pneumonia. This equates to a quarter of all deaths among children under 5.