China pledges 'final victory' over COVID as outbreak raises global alarm

Global health officials tried to determine the facts of China's raging COVID-19 outbreak and how to prevent a further spread as the Communist Party's mouthpiece newspaper on Wednesday rallied citizens for a "final victory" over the virus.

China's axing of its stringent virus curbs last month has unleashed COVID on a 1.4 billion population that has little natural immunity having been shielded from the virus since it emerged in the central city of Wuhan three years ago.

Many funeral homes and hospitals say they are overwhelmed, and international health experts...