The World Health Organization has accused China of underrepresenting the seriousness of its coronavirus outbreak and the actual number of deaths, in its strongest rebuke yet of Beijing’s handling of the pandemic.
“We believe the current figures being released from China understate the true impact of the disease in terms of ICU hospital admissions [intensive care unit] Admissions, particularly in relation to fatalities,” Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s emergency response program, told reporters on Wednesday.
Beijing’s definition of Covid-19 death, which was amended last month, is “too narrow,” Ryan said, while urging Beijing to provide more transparency on the magnitude of the spike in cases since President Xi Jinping put an abrupt end to it draconian zero covid control system.
China’s zero-Covid policy, which has placed many of its largest cities under lockdown and imposed strict quarantines, began to unravel last year as authorities struggled to contain the virus. A wave of protests in November led to the policy being scrapped last month, hastening a spike in cases. Internal Chinese government estimates suggest that hundreds of millions of people could be infected by the end of December.
Still, as of Tuesday, China had officially reported just 5,258 deaths from Covid nationwide, including 25 since December 1, despite forecasts of up to 1 million deaths during that wave. Some regions have reported zero deaths in cases despite an explosion. The county’s National Health Commission has said the published death counts are for “research and study reference” only.
The WHO has been wary of directly criticizing China since the virus emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019. This has led critics, including the US during Donald Trump’s presidency, to accuse them of being too lenient with Beijing for not speaking out about the world’s danger posed by Covid.
While the WHO has repeatedly urged Beijing to release data to facilitate an investigation into the origins of the virus, it has never directly accused China of not telling the truth during the pandemic.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also speaking to reporters on Wednesday, stressed that the health agency was “concerned about the risk to life in China” as he called for faster sharing of virus sequencing data. This would help scientists track the evolution of the Sars-Cov-2 strain of coronavirus, which has mutated extensively since it was first discovered.
But both the WHO and the global repository of virus genomes Gisaid said no new variants had been detected in China since the explosion of coronavirus cases. Gisaid on Wednesday said Beijing had stepped up its surveillance and exchange efforts.
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China’s embassy in London, in response to the WHO’s comments, said the country had “always put people and their lives first” and “always responsibly shared its information and data with the international community”.
The United Nations health agency last month called for more transparency and an increase in vaccinations in China, particularly among the elderly, who are relatively less protected than other parts of the world.
WHO officials also said they are keeping variant XBB.1.5 under surveillance after noting its “growth advantage” and that it appeared to be rapidly replacing other existing variants. The variant has been spotted in 25 countries, including China, the US and the UK.