Some US and European officials are struggling to figure out how, or if, they can help mitigate a crisis they fear will hurt the global economy, further constrain corporate supply chains and spawn new coronavirus variants of concern.
Democratic governments find themselves in a difficult spot diplomatically, wanting to help stem a burgeoning crisis with global and domestic health and economic implications in a way that the Chinese government might be willing to accept. One area of potential Western assistance involves whether China would accept BioNTech's updated mRNA vaccine designed to target currently circulating Omicron-related virus variants, which many experts believe is more effective than China's shots.
Beijing has said"institutional advantages" will help it get through the epidemic without foreign assistance, and China's estimated Covid death toll is still lower than the 1.1 million U.S. deaths and Europe's 2.1 million. President Joe Biden has described the state of global politics as an inflection point between democracy and autocracies.