The World Health Organization is calling on China to abandon its “zero-COVID” strategy, citing the toll that weeks of lockdowns have taken on human rights and the economy. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke Tuesday from Geneva.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “When we talk about the 'zero-COVID' strategy, we don’t think that it’s sustainable, considering the behavior of the virus now and what we anticipate in the future.”

A Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing called the WHO chief’s comments “irresponsible,” and his remarks were censored on Chinese social media.