Viral plot twist: China’s pneumonia outbreak ain’t COVID 2.0

Parents with children who are suffering from respiratory diseases are lining up at a children's hospital in Chongqing, China, on November 23, 2023. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto)
Parents with children who are suffering from respiratory diseases are lining up at a children's hospital in Chongqing, China, on November 23, 2023. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto)
Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto via Reuters

Since October, China has been tracking an outbreak of pneumonia cases among children that has seen thousands of daily hospitalizations in major cities. A children’s hospital in Beijing reportedly admitted, on average, 7,000 children daily, in late November. But Chinese health authorities, responding to a data request from the World Health Organization, say they see no evidence of links to new germs.

Still, the illnesses have China’s neighbors on edge. Vietnam, India, and Taiwan are taking proactive preventative measures – asking pediatricians to monitor for pneumonia cases and conducting preparedness tests of their healthcare systems.

Beijing’s light-touch approach at home, and relative transparency with the WHO, suggests it believes the outbreak is under control. There have been similar upticks in pneumonia among children in Denmark, the Netherlands, and in a county in Ohio, but data from the US Centers for Disease Control suggests they are not linked to China.

No lockdowns. China isn’t responding with drastic measures – doctors, after all, know how to treat pneumonia-causing bugs. Besides, Beijing really can’t afford a COVID-style lockdown right now, politically or economically.

“Beijing was badly burned economically and socially by the policies that they imposed on themselves during COVID-19,” says Eurasia Group Senior Analyst Dominic Chiu. “Unless there's a very, very strong reason to do so, they're not gonna reimpose them.”

Already facing a sluggish growth outlook and with no end in sight for the local debt problem or property market turmoil, discretion looks like the better part of valor.

The US shrugs it off. While five Republican senators called for a travel ban to and from China last Friday, the Biden administration didn’t bite. The White House isn’t keen to disrupt the delicate stabilization it seeks with Beijing.

But the US and China have also missed out on an opportunity to build some trust. Public health was not among the subjects that Washington and Beijing agreed to establish communication channels over when Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met last month. There isn’t sufficient mutual trust to improvise, according to Chiu, and thus the opportunity to work together has been lost.

“US-China relations are at a point where direct collaboration and coordination is impossible and has to be done through a third party like the WHO,” he said.

But Chiu is watching for any signs of Congress trying to go around the administration to enact a travel ban on its own. GOP lawmakers don’t have much to lose by being tough on China, but Democrats in Congress don’t have much reason to back them — and Biden can veto any such attempt. He’s not about to throw out over a year of hard work building back relations with China.

More from GZERO Media

Listen: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, made his fortune-breaking industries—space, cars, social media—and is now trying to break the government… in the name of fixing it. But what happens when Silicon Valley’s ‘move fast and break things’ ethos collides with the machinery of federal bureaucracy? On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with WIRED Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond to unpack the implications of Musk’s deepening role in the Trump administration and what’s really behind his push into politics.

France's President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference following a summit for the "coalition of the willing" at the Elysee Palace in Paris on March 27, 2025.

LUDOVIC MARIN/Pool via REUTERS

At the third summit of the so-called “coalition of the willing” for Ukraine on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a multinational “reassurance force” to deter Russian aggression once a ceasefire is in place – and to engage if attacked.

A group demonstrators chant slogans together as they hold posters during the protest. The ongoing protests were sparked by the arrest of Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Sopa Images via Reuters

Last week’s arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu sparked the largest anti-government rallies in a decade and resulted in widespread arrests throughout Turkey. Nearly 1,900 people have been detained since the protests erupted eight days ago.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the then-nominee for US ambassador to the UN, during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025.
Al Drago/Pool/Sipa USA

An internal GOP poll found a Republican candidate trailing in a special election for a conservative-leaning district in Florida, forcing US President Donald Trump to make a decision aimed at maintaining the Republican Party’s majority in the House.

South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, pictured here addressing the press in 2020.

REUTERS/Samir Bol

Alarm bells are ringing ever more loudly in South Sudan, as Vice President Riek Machar — chief rival to Prime Minister Salva Kiir — was arrested late Wednesday in an operation involving 20 armored vehicles at his compound in Juba. He was placed under house arrest, a move that is fueling fears that the country will soon descend into civil war.

Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, pictured here at the anniversary event of the departure of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 28, 2022.

REUTERS/Ali Khara

The Trump administration has dropped multimillion-dollar bounties on senior Afghan officials from the Haqqani network, a militant faction that carried out some of the deadliest attacks on American troops but has now positioned itself as a moderate wing within the Taliban government. But why?

The Canadian flag flies on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

REUTERS/Blair Gable

Canada’s foreign interference watchdog is warning that China, India, and Russia plan on meddling in the country’s federal election. The contest, which launched last weekend, has already been marked by a handful of stories about past covert foreign interventions and threats of new ones.