A Shanghai hospital told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with Covid-19 as it expected half of the city’s 25 million people to get infected by the end of next week. After widespread protests against strict mitigation measures, China this month began dismantling its “zero-Covid” regime, which had taken a great financial and psychological toll on its 1.4 billion people. China’s official death count since the pandemic began stands at 5,241, a fraction of what most other countries faced, but now looks bound to rise sharply.
