China has a new strategy for keeping official COVID numbers down during its reopening: Stop counting many new infectionsChina will only release data on symptomatic COVID infections, the country announced Wednesday as it struggles to keep the virus at bay after relaxing its so-called zero-COVID restrictions.Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, said Wednesday that China’s easing of lockdowns isn’t responsible for its current surge.And I believe China decided strategically that was not the best option anymore.”Experts have urged China to let outside experts like those with the WHO advise its transition, as well as to allow better vaccines like those from Pfizer and Moderna.Because China lacks “population immunity” owing to a widespread lack of exposure, subpar vaccines, and low vaccination rates among the elderly, the virus will likely rip through the country, causing “hundreds of millions” of infections, Ali Mokdad, a professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, recently told Fortune.They cannot handle the explosion in infections and hospitalizations.”“This will spread like wildfire.”Earlier this month Ryan said he hoped the Chinese would find a new approach to battling COVID that “balances the control of the virus with the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of the people of China,” he said."