China’s Covid-19 data is not giving an accurate picture of the situation there and under-represents the number of hospitalisations and deaths from the disease, a senior WHO official said on Wednesday.
The UN agency was preparing to meet Chinese scientists again on Thursday as part of a wider briefing among member states on the global Covid-19 situation as concerns grow about the rapid spread of the virus in the world’s No. 2 economy.
On Tuesday, China’s top scientists presented data to a WHO technical advisory group showing no new coronavirus variant had been found in the country of 1.4 billion people. That might ease some concerns about the outbreak since Beijing abruptly reversed its “zero Covid” policy last month. But comments by WHO officials on Wednesday were the clearest criticism yet of China’s recent handling of the pandemic. It underscored worries about the accuracy and availability of Beijing’s data, hampering the fight against the disease which has killed more than 6.7 million and roiled global economies.
“We believe the current numbers being published from China underrepresent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions, particularly in terms of death,” said Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergencies director. He told a briefing in Geneva that the WHO believes the Chinese government’s definition of death is “too narrow”.
“We still do not have complete data,” said Ryan. Late last month, China narrowed its definition for classifying deaths as Covid-related, counting only those involving Covid-caused pneumonia or respiratory failure, raising eyebrows among world health experts.
The WHO says deaths should be attributed to Covid19 if they result from a “clinically compatible illness” in a patient with a probable or confirmed infection, and no other unrelated cause of death is involved. China has reported five or fewer deaths a day since the policy U-turn. But many Chinese funeral homes and hospitals say they are overwhelmed, and health experts predict at least 1 million Covid-related deaths in China this year.
