BEIJING: China is experiencing a huge surge of Covid-19 after years of intransigent lockdown restrictions were dismantled last month.
A growing number of countries are concerned about the lack of data and transparency surrounding the outbreak in China.
Here’s why it’s cause for concern:
Beijing has admitted the scale of the outbreak has become “impossible” to track after mandatory mass testing ended last month.
The National Health Commission has stopped publishing daily national statistics on infections and deaths.
That responsibility has shifted to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which will only release numbers once a month after China downgrades its disease management protocols on Jan. 8.
China has reported just 15 Covid deaths since it began lifting restrictions on December 7, shortly after which it tightened the criteria by which deaths from the virus are recorded.
This has fueled concerns that the wave of infections is not being accurately reflected in official statistics.
Authorities admitted last week that the scale of data collected is “much smaller” than when mandatory mass PCR testing was in place.
CDC official Yin Wenwu said authorities are now compiling hospital and local government survey data as well as emergency call volumes and fever medicine sales, which “will make up for the shortcomings in our reporting.”
Chinese hospitals and crematoriums are grappling with an influx of patients and bodies, with rural areas particularly affected.
Several countries, including the United States, Australia and Canada, said last week that they were imposing testing restrictions on arrivals from China due to a lack of transparency over infection data.
Last month, a few local and regional authorities began sharing estimated daily infection totals as the scale of the outbreak remained unclear.
Health officials in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang believed one million residents were infected every day for the past week. The cities of Quzhou and Zhoushan said at least 30% of the population had contracted the virus.
The eastern coastal city of Qingdao has also estimated around 500,000 daily new cases, and the southern manufacturing hub of Dongguan expects up to 300,000.
Officials in the island province of Hainan estimated on Friday that the infection rate there had exceeded 50%.
But senior health official Wu Zunyou said on Thursday the peak had passed in the cities of Beijing, Chengdu and Tianjin, Guangdong province – the country’s most populous – saying the same on Sunday.
Shanghai’s top infectious disease expert, Zhang Wen Hongtold state media that the megacity may have entered its peak period on December 22, with around 10 million residents contracting Covid.
Leaked notes from a meeting of health officials last month revealed they believe 250 million people were infected across China in the first 20 days of December.
Independent infection models paint a grim picture. Researchers at the University of Hong Kong have estimated that nearly one million Chinese could die this winter as a result of the opening.
And the health risk analysis company Airfinity predicted 11,000 deaths and 1.8 million infections per day, with a total of 1.7 million deaths at the end of April.
Many countries have cited concerns about potential new variants as a reason to screen Chinese arrivals for Covid.
But there is no evidence yet of new strains emerging from the current wave.
Senior CDC official Xu Wenbo said last month that China was developing a national genetic database of Covid samples derived from hospital surveillance that would help track mutations.
Chinese health experts have said in recent days that the Omicron BA.5.2 and BF.7 subvariants are the most prevalent in Beijing, in response to public fears that the Delta variant may still be circulating.
They said Omicron also remained the most dominant strain in Shanghai.
In many Western countries, these strains have been overtaken by the more transmissible XBB and BQ subvariants, which are not yet dominant in China.
Beijing submitted 384 samples of Omicron over the past month to the global online database GISAID, according to its website.
But the country’s total number of submissions to the database, at 1,308, is dwarfed by those of other nations, including the United States, Britain, Cambodia and Senegal.
Recent samples from China “all closely resemble known variants circulating globally seen … between July and December,” GISAID said on Friday.
University of Hong Kong virologist Jin Dong-yan said in an independent podcast last month that people need not fear the risk of a new, deadlier variant in China.
“Many places around the world have experienced (a large-scale infection) but a more deadly or pathogenic variant has not subsequently emerged,” Jin said.
“I’m not saying that the emergence of a (more lethal) strain is completely impossible, but the possibility is very small.”
A growing number of countries are concerned about the lack of data and transparency surrounding the outbreak in China.
Here’s why it’s cause for concern:
Beijing has admitted the scale of the outbreak has become “impossible” to track after mandatory mass testing ended last month.
The National Health Commission has stopped publishing daily national statistics on infections and deaths.
That responsibility has shifted to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which will only release numbers once a month after China downgrades its disease management protocols on Jan. 8.
China has reported just 15 Covid deaths since it began lifting restrictions on December 7, shortly after which it tightened the criteria by which deaths from the virus are recorded.
This has fueled concerns that the wave of infections is not being accurately reflected in official statistics.
Authorities admitted last week that the scale of data collected is “much smaller” than when mandatory mass PCR testing was in place.
CDC official Yin Wenwu said authorities are now compiling hospital and local government survey data as well as emergency call volumes and fever medicine sales, which “will make up for the shortcomings in our reporting.”
Chinese hospitals and crematoriums are grappling with an influx of patients and bodies, with rural areas particularly affected.
Several countries, including the United States, Australia and Canada, said last week that they were imposing testing restrictions on arrivals from China due to a lack of transparency over infection data.
Last month, a few local and regional authorities began sharing estimated daily infection totals as the scale of the outbreak remained unclear.
Health officials in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang believed one million residents were infected every day for the past week. The cities of Quzhou and Zhoushan said at least 30% of the population had contracted the virus.
The eastern coastal city of Qingdao has also estimated around 500,000 daily new cases, and the southern manufacturing hub of Dongguan expects up to 300,000.
Officials in the island province of Hainan estimated on Friday that the infection rate there had exceeded 50%.
But senior health official Wu Zunyou said on Thursday the peak had passed in the cities of Beijing, Chengdu and Tianjin, Guangdong province – the country’s most populous – saying the same on Sunday.
Shanghai’s top infectious disease expert, Zhang Wen Hongtold state media that the megacity may have entered its peak period on December 22, with around 10 million residents contracting Covid.
Leaked notes from a meeting of health officials last month revealed they believe 250 million people were infected across China in the first 20 days of December.
Independent infection models paint a grim picture. Researchers at the University of Hong Kong have estimated that nearly one million Chinese could die this winter as a result of the opening.
And the health risk analysis company Airfinity predicted 11,000 deaths and 1.8 million infections per day, with a total of 1.7 million deaths at the end of April.
Many countries have cited concerns about potential new variants as a reason to screen Chinese arrivals for Covid.
But there is no evidence yet of new strains emerging from the current wave.
Senior CDC official Xu Wenbo said last month that China was developing a national genetic database of Covid samples derived from hospital surveillance that would help track mutations.
Chinese health experts have said in recent days that the Omicron BA.5.2 and BF.7 subvariants are the most prevalent in Beijing, in response to public fears that the Delta variant may still be circulating.
They said Omicron also remained the most dominant strain in Shanghai.
In many Western countries, these strains have been overtaken by the more transmissible XBB and BQ subvariants, which are not yet dominant in China.
Beijing submitted 384 samples of Omicron over the past month to the global online database GISAID, according to its website.
But the country’s total number of submissions to the database, at 1,308, is dwarfed by those of other nations, including the United States, Britain, Cambodia and Senegal.
Recent samples from China “all closely resemble known variants circulating globally seen … between July and December,” GISAID said on Friday.
University of Hong Kong virologist Jin Dong-yan said in an independent podcast last month that people need not fear the risk of a new, deadlier variant in China.
“Many places around the world have experienced (a large-scale infection) but a more deadly or pathogenic variant has not subsequently emerged,” Jin said.
“I’m not saying that the emergence of a (more lethal) strain is completely impossible, but the possibility is very small.”
