China has responded to criticism from the WHO about its Covid response, calling on the global health authority to be more objective in its statements and conclusions.
“Facts have proven that China has always maintained close communication with the WHO and shared information and data on the epidemic in a timely, open and transparent manner in accordance with law,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in a press conference Thursday.
“At the moment, China’s Covid situation is under control. As China adjusts its Covid response policy, we will continue to carry out activities including technical exchanges with the WHO. 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,” Mao urged.
The comments followed criticism of China’s alleged lack of transparency on Covid by WHO chief Ghebreyesus, and claims by Mike Ryan, the WHO’s executive director for health emergencies, that the case numbers being released by the People’s Republic “under-represent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions, and particularly in terms of deaths.”
Ryan charged Chin with improperly defining Covid deaths too ‘narrowly’, pointing to the Asian nation’s health authorities’ listing only respiratory failure-related deaths ‘with Covid’ as deaths ‘from Covid’. “We still do not have complete data,” the official said.
US officials including President Joe Biden have also “raised concerns” about China’s transparency on the state of the pandemic, with Biden telling reporters that Beijing has not been “forthcoming” enough on the matter. The US’s European allies have expressed similar concerns.
China, which long maintained some of the most stringent Covid restrictions in the world, including the locking down of entire districts after they reported just a handful of cases, and mandatory testing, eased restrictions in December after protests broke out in multiple cities, amid concerns that the demonstrations could spread and be commandeered by pro-Western opposition forces.
The eased rules contributed to spiking case numbers, which hit up to 37 million daily infections in late December, but have not caused a subsequent spike in death rates, with the People’s Republic reporting only 22 deaths over the past two weeks (and just 5,200+ since the pandemic began three years ago).
China’s narrow measurement of Covid deaths indirectly addresses long-held criticism of statistical measurements in other countries. The US Centers for Disease Control for example has received flak from some corners for counting deaths “with Covid” –such as gunshot victims, as Covid deaths.