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The World Health Organization (WHO) is leading calls for China to share more pandemic data as the world's most populous country responds to its nationwide COVID-19 outbreak by scaling back the publication of official statistics.
On December 29, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the right of the United States and other nations to impose restrictions on travel from China. Around 10 countries, including many of China's neighbors, now require negative PCR tests from passengers departing Chinese airports.
"In the absence of comprehensive information from China, it is understandable that countries around the world are acting in ways that they believe may protect their populations," he tweeted.
The caution, which Beijing argues is unscientific, is related to a general lack of information about the true extent of China's surge in infections after its government dismantled three years of strict virus controls—lockdowns, mass testing and layers of contact tracing—in the span of a single month.
On January 8, China will officially downgrade COVID from a Class A to a Class B infectious disease, paving the way for an end to all quarantine measures nationwide. That's before most epidemiological models expect the country's first wave to peak, while the government has already stopped releasing accurate infection and fatality numbers.
Experts also question whether Beijing still has the capacity to track the spread of the virus within its borders. Individuals who return positive results on at-home rapid antigen tests aren't required to report their infection to authorities.
On Friday, the WHO convened virtually with Chinese health officials "to seek further information on the situation, and to offer WHO's expertise and further support," according to a statement.
"WHO again asked for regular sharing of specific and real-time data on the epidemiological situation—including more genetic sequencing data, data on disease impact including hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and deaths—and data on vaccinations delivered and vaccination status, especially in vulnerable people and those over 60 years old," the U.N. health agency said.
"WHO stressed the importance of monitoring and the timely publication of data to help China and the global community to formulate accurate risk assessments and to inform effective responses," it said, noting that Chinese scientists were expected to present viral sequencing data at a separate technical meeting on Tuesday.
Wang Wenbin, China's foreign ministry spokesperson, responded to the WHO's call by calling travel restrictions unnecessary. Since the start of the pandemic, China has been "open and transparent" about its data, he said.
Relevant departments would "continue to closely monitor whether the virus will mutate, share information on COVID in a timely, open and transparent manner in accordance with the law, and work with the international community to address the COVID challenge," Wang said.
Beijing has opted not to import Western mRNA vaccines that have been shown to be more effective than China's domestically developed virus shots. A year ago, the WHO advised those receiving Chinese vaccines to accept a booster.
A renewed vaccine drive is now underway in China, where the vaccination rate was over 90 percent as of late November. However, the official figures showed some 37 million seniors over the age of 60 were unboosted, while 28 million weren't vaccinated at all.
As a consequence, the current viral wave has hit China's elderly and vulnerable particularly hard. On December 6, one day before Beijing reversed its zero-COVID policy, its national health authority narrowed the definition of COVID fatalities to exclude deaths in individuals with underlying illnesses, further reducing the usefulness of the country's statistics.
On Monday, China reported one COVID death for January 1, raising its pandemic death toll to 5,250.
In reality, however, the country was likely seeing 1.8 million infections and 11,000 deaths a day, according to a report by U.K.-based health analytics firm Airfinity, the latest attempt by the private sector to gauge the scale of China's outbreak.
Cumulative deaths likely totaled 110,000 between December 1 and December 30, the group said on Friday.
Airfinity estimates China will start to experience an infection peak on January 13, with daily fatalities likely to reach a high of 25,000 some 10 days later. It predicts a second peak by March 3, with a total of 1.7 million deaths across China by the end of April.
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About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more