U.S. criticizes China's zero Covid strategy, says Beijing needs to boost vaccination among elderly - CNBC

The White House on Monday criticized Beijing's zero Covid strategy as ineffective and said the Chinese people have a right to peacefully protest.

"We've said that zero COVID is not a policy we pursuing here in the United States," the NSC spokesperson said.

"It seems that in China, it was just a very, very strict extraordinary lockdown where you lock people in the house but without any seemingly endgame to it," Fauci said.

As of August, about 86% of people ages 60 and older in China were fully vaccinated and 68% had received a booster, according to a September report from China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The authors of the China CDC report said older people are more skeptical of the vaccine.

Ashish Jha, head of the White House Covid task force, said China should focus on making sure the elderly get vaccinated.