China ‘under-representing’ true impact of Covid outbreak, WHO says

By Simone McCarthy, CNN

The World Health Organization has accused China of “under-representing” the severity of its Covid outbreak and criticized its “narrow” definition of what constitutes a Covid death, as top global health officials urge Beijing to share more data about the explosive spread.

“We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing in Geneva Wednesday.

“WHO is concerned about the risk to life in China and has reiterated the importance of vaccination, including booster doses, to protect against hospitalization, severe disease, and death,” he said.

Speaking in more detail, WHO executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan said the numbers released by China “under-represent the true impact of the disease” in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, as well as deaths.

He acknowledged that many countries have seen lags in reporting hospital data, but pointed to China’s “narrow” definition of a Covid death as part of the issue.

The country only lists those Covid patients who succumbed with respiratory failure as having died of Covid. In the two weeks prior to January 5, China reported fewer than 20 deaths from local Covid cases, according to figures released on the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website — even as the outbreak has overwhelmed hospitals and crematoriums amid apparent Covid surges in multiple cities.

On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry said the country has always shared epidemic information “in a timely, open and transparent manner” and insisted its Covid situation was “under control.”

“It is hoped that the WHO secretariat will take a science-based, objective and just position and play a positive role in addressing the pandemic globally,” spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily news briefing.

Chinese experts would attend a regular WHO member state briefing on Thursday to “respond to technical issues that are of concern to other parties,” Mao said, adding that China would continue to closely monitor possible mutations of the virus and release relevant information.

Data ‘not forthcoming’

WHO officials, who have grappled with Beijing’s tight control of data access throughout the pandemic, have become increasingly vocal in their calls for reliable information as a major outbreak rips across China’s urban centers in the wake of an abrupt relaxation of disease controls last month.

The surge in cases in a country of 1.4 billion has also raised global concerns about the potential emergence of new variants — and of China’s levels of monitoring and sharing data. A number of countries have implemented Covid testing requirements for travelers from China, citing a dearth of data on strains circulating there.

On Wednesday, the European Union “strongly encouraged” its member states to introduce a requirement for a negative Covid test for passengers traveling from China to the EU, according to a statement released by the Swedish presidency of the bloc.

WHO’s Tedros said Wednesday it was “understandable” that some countries were taking these steps, “with circulation in China so high and comprehensive data not forthcoming.”

China’s Foreign Ministry earlier this week decried the measures as unscientific and vowed to take “corresponding countermeasures for different situations in accordance with the principle of reciprocity.”

Some health experts around the world have also criticized targeted travel screening as ineffective and voiced concern such measures could fuel racism and xenophobia.

No new variant reported

In an online statement updated Thursday, GISAID — an international initiative for sharing genomic data of viruses causing influenza and Covid-19 — said China had continued “to ramp up” its surveillance efforts and preliminary analyses indicated reported data closely resembles that of known variants already spreading globally.

Chinese health officials also presented recent genomic data to a WHO advisory body during a closed-door meeting Tuesday. In a statement Wednesday, the WHO advisory body said the variants detected in China are known and have been circulating in other countries, with no new variant yet reported by the Chinese CDC.

But the advisory group and top WHO officials stressed the need for more forthcoming genomic data. The latest situation adds to longstanding challenges for the UN body, which faced criticism at the start of the pandemic that it did not push China hard enough for data amid concerns Beijing was obscuring critical information.

“There’s a lot more data that needs to be shared from China and additionally from around the world so that we can track this pandemic as we enter this fourth year,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on Covid, said Wednesday.

“We need more information on sequencing around the country, (and for) those sequences to be shared with publicly available databases like GISAID so that deeper analyses can be done,” she said.

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CNN’s Hira Humayun and Sugam Pokharel contributed reporting.