China urges ‘final victory’ over Covid as global concern mounts over spread
GLOBAL health officials tried to determine the facts of China’s raging Covid-19 outbreak and how to prevent a further spread as the government’s mouthpiece newspaper on Wednesday (Jan 4) rallied citizens for a “final victory” over the virus.
The axing of China’s strict “zero-Covid” policy last month unleashed the virus on a 1.4 billion population that has little natural immunity, having been shielded since it emerged in Wuhan city three years ago. Funeral homes reported a spike in demand for their services, and international health experts predicted at least one million deaths in China this year.
Officially, China reported just a small number of fatalities from Covid following the policy U-turn. It posted five new deaths on Jan 3, compared with three a day earlier. This brought the official death toll to 5,258, which is very low by global standards. But the actual figure is widely believed to be much higher. British-based health data firm Airfinity said about 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from Covid.
The Chinese government played down concerns about the disease, which it previously struggled to eradicate through mass lockdowns, even as the rest of the world opened up.
“China and the Chinese people will surely win the final victory against the epidemic,” Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily said in an editorial, rebutting criticism of the government’s tough anti-virus regime that triggered historic protests late last year.
As it now dismantles those restrictions, China has been particularly critical of decisions by some countries to impose a requirement for a Covid test on its citizens, saying they are unreasonable and lack scientific basis.
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Health officials from the 27-member European Union (EU) are due to meet on Wednesday, to come up with a coordinated response to deal with the implications of increased travel from China.
Most EU countries favour pre-departure Covid testing for travellers from China, the European Commission said on Tuesday, following similar measures imposed by the US, Britain, South Korea and others.
China, which has been largely shut off from the world since the pandemic began in late 2019, will stop requiring inbound travellers to quarantine from Jan 8. But it will still demand that arriving passengers get tested before they begin their journeys.
Meanwhile, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials met Chinese scientists on Tuesday amid concerns over the accuracy of China’s data on the spread and evolution of its outbreak.
The UN agency invited the scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing, and to share data on hospitalisations, deaths and vaccinations.
A spokesperson for the WHO said it would communicate later, probably at a news briefing on Wednesday. The spokesperson earlier said the agency expected a “detailed discussion” about circulating variants in China, and globally.
Last month, Reuters reported that the WHO had not received data from China on new Covid hospitalisations since Beijing’s policy shift, prompting some health experts to question whether it might be hiding information on the extent of its outbreak.
Travel interest
Despite some countries imposing restrictions on Chinese visitors, state media reported that interest in outbound travel from the world’s most populous country is cranking up.
Bookings for international flights from China have risen by 145 per cent year on year in recent days, the government-run China Daily newspaper reported, citing data from travel booking platform Trip.com.
The number of international flights to and from China is still a fraction of pre-pandemic levels. The government said it would increase flights and make it easier for people to travel abroad.
Thailand, a major destination for Chinese tourists, said on Tuesday that it expected at least five million arrivals from China this year. More than 11 million Chinese tourists accounted for nearly a third of Thailand’s total visitors in 2019.
But there are signs that an increase in travel from China could further spread the virus abroad. Health authorities in South Korea, which began testing travellers from China for Covid on Monday, said more than a fifth of test results were positive. REUTERS
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