No need to wear Masks anymore?

More than 520,000 people died of covid-19 in the United States. Anti-epidemic expert Fauci reminded that "Masks may have to be worn until 2022." The Biden administration, which focuses on domestic anti-epidemics, has now announced that it will continue to exempt medical products imported from China from tariffs.

According to Reuters, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced on the 10th local time that in order to continue to respond to the domestic epidemic in the United States, the tariff exemption period for 99 medical products imported from China will be extended for another 6 months until September 30, 2021.

This batch of medical products includes personal protective equipment such as mask,  gloves and cleaning utensils. It is worth mentioning that this is the third time the US government has extended tariff exemptions for related products in the past year.

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In 2019, the Trump administration announced an additional 15% tariff on approximately US$125 billion of Chinese goods. Subsequently, in the first phase of the trade agreement signed between China and the United States in January last year, the tariff rate was reduced from 15% to 7.5%. Some of these products have been temporarily exempted from tariffs.

It was not until March last year that the epidemic accelerated across the United States that the U.S. government began to exempt China’s masks and other medical supplies from tariffs, and announced twice in September and December last year to extend the exemption period, which was originally due to expire on March 31 this year .

The Office of the United States Trade Representative wrote in a statement that considering the need to continue to fight the Covid-19 epidemic, the invalidation of tariff exemptions for some products is considered "inappropriate."

As of the morning of the 11th, Beijing time, the United States had newly confirmed 50602 cases and 1170 new deaths in the past 24 hours. At present, the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the United States is 29,137,386, and the total number of deaths is 528,652.

American anti-epidemic expert Fauci stated in late February that in order to deal with the virus and its variants, Americans may need to continue to wear masks until 2022, even if they may "greatly return to normal from the epidemic" by the end of this year.

According to the "Washington Post" statistics, as of now, 32.4 million people (9.8% of the total population) in the United States have completed two doses of vaccination, and 62.5 million people have received at least one dose.

The Brookings Institution, a US think tank, recently published an article calling on the United States and China to cooperate in response to the epidemic. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on the 5th that strengthening China-US cooperation in the fight against the epidemic is the common aspiration of people of insight in the two countries. It is understood that from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021, China exported about 43.85 billion mask  about 1.19 billion pairs of surgical gloves, about 950 million sets of protective clothing, about 54.03 million pairs of goggles, and ventilators to the United States. 17,585 units. China is willing to continue to work together with other countries in the world, including the United States, to support the WHO in further playing its role and strive to overcome the epidemic at an early date.