China on Thursday called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to take an “even-handed” stance on COVID-19, after WHO criticized Beijing’s toll on the outbreak.
The country lifted without notice in early December most of its strict measures against COVID-19, which had allowed its population to be largely protected from the virus since 2020.
Chinese hospitals are now overwhelmed by a surge of mostly elderly patients, crematoriums are saturated, while many pharmacies lack fever medication.
However, authorities are reporting very few deaths linked to COVID-19, after a controversial change in methodology for counting victims.
Now only people who died directly from respiratory failure related to COVID-19 are included in the statistics.
This change in methodology means that a large number of deaths will no longer be listed as being due to COVID.
An adjustment that does not reflect the situation for many experts and the World Health Organization.
“We think this definition is too narrow,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO health emergency management officer, on Wednesday.
“The current figures released by China under-represent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, intensive care admissions and especially in terms of deaths,” insisted Dr Ryan.
” We hope that […] the WHO will maintain a science-based, objective and impartial stance and play an active role in the global response to the challenges of the epidemic, ”retorted Thursday in Beijing a spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy, Mao Ning.
Since the start of the pandemic, China has opposed anything it perceives as a politicization of the health crisis.
“Unacceptable”
“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China has been sharing reliable information and data with the international community in an open and transparent manner,” the spokesperson insisted.
China, which has a population of 1.4 billion, has recorded only 23 deaths from COVID since December, despite an unprecedented wave of infections in the country for three years.
“We continue to call on China for faster, regular and reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more complete and real-time sequencing of the virus,” WHO Director-General Tedros said on Wednesday. Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Despite the epidemic rebound in China, authorities will end mandatory quarantines on arrival in China on Sunday and again allow Chinese people to travel abroad, after three years of frustration.
The border between Hong Kong and mainland China, virtually closed for nearly three years, reopens to travelers from Sunday.
As a precaution, the United States and a dozen other countries, including Italy, Japan, Canada and Israel, announced that they would require negative tests from passengers arriving from China.
The WHO reiterated its support for these screening measures.
Since Thursday, the United States has required a negative COVID test upon entering the territory, which must be carried out 48 hours before leaving China.
France, Italy and Spain have taken the same measure.
The European Union has it “strongly encouraged” this week its member states to impose a screening carried out in China before the flight, and “encouraged” the Twenty-Seven to complete the negative test by “random tests” on arrival on European soil.
Beijing on Tuesday condemned the imposition of COVID tests by some countries, deeming them “unacceptable” and threatening “countermeasures”.