Welcome to our weekly newsletter highlighting the best of The Economist’s coverage of the pandemic and its effects.
China is one of the few countries still trying to maintain a “zero-covid” policy. The government remains wedded to mass-testing and strict lockdowns, all enforced by a small army of community health workers and others. Yet spikes in the number of cases continue, not least in Hong Kong. In a leader, we argue that the Chinese government should now help its people live with covid-19. It needs to devote as much energy to charting a path out of the zero-covid policy as it has to enforcing it.
Two years have passed since the covid pandemic was declared, and it’s far from over. In our Babbage podcast host Alok Jha speaks to Sir Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, a medical-research charity, about the road ahead.
When covid hit, prisoners locked up at close quarters were thought to be among those most at risk. Recent figures show that in fact relatively few inmates of Britain’s jails have died. But in the Britain section we look at how draconian measures needed to contain the spread of covid still took a heavy toll, physically and mentally.
It has been a struggle to get covid vaccines to poorer parts of the world. But to end on a more cheerful note, many, including Africa, should have better luck with the world's first malaria vaccine. It is due to be rolled out later this year. A jab developed by scientists at Oxford University has shown 77% effectiveness. Modellers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reckon that, with enough resources and in conjunction with other anti-malarial measures, by 2030 the jabs could cut deaths caused by 75%. | 
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