Restaurant collapse

Twenty-nine people have been confirmed dead after a village restaurant collapsed on Saturday in North China’s Shanxi Province, local authorities said on Sunday.

The accident happened at around 9:40 a.m. on Saturday when relatives and fellow villagers were attending a birthday party banquet for an 80-year-old person at Juxian Restaurant in Chenzhuang Village in Xiangfen County, according to the rescue team. A total of 57 people were pulled out of the debris of the collapsed two-story building.

COVID vaccines

Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccine candidates have started international phase-3 clinical trials, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.

Some of the phase-3 trials are expected to complete the first round of vaccinations in early September, with preliminary data expected as early as November. Phase-3 clinical trials usually involve thousands of people to verify the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines, which are key to their market approval. As the epidemic has been brought under control in China, the country no longer has conditions for large-scale clinical trials, so all the phase-3 trials are being carried out overseas.

Health education

The Ministry of Education has asked all public schools to teach students first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) as part of children’s health education to address the public’s lack of knowledge and competence to step in during a first aid emergency, according to a joint statement by the Ministry of Education and Red Cross Society of China last week.

There are as many as 550,000 sudden cardiac deaths in China every year, meaning one person dies per minute due to cardiac arrest, according to the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases.

Binge-eating kid

The short video platform Ixigua has permanently shut down a user account featuring a 3-year-old binge-eater, identified as Peiqi, the Chinese name for the cartoon character Peppa Pig, amid allegations of child abuse.

It came after video streaming giants including Kuaishou and Douyin ramped up efforts earlier this month to take down binge-eating content as part of a sweeping campaign to curb food waste and unhealthy entertainment. (SD-Agencies)