A woman looks after her elderly relative lying on a stretcher as patients receive intravenous drips in the emergency ward of a hospital in Beijing. AP
Washington: US President Joe Biden raised concern about China’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak and noted that Beijing is not that forthcoming. His worry comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) said China is “under-representing the true impact of the disease”.
‘Flying from China, you get to be tested’
Responding to reporters on a question whether he is concerned about the Covid-19 situation in China, Biden said: “Well, yes, I am.”
“I think we just got to make the protocol we set out: that if you’re flying from China, you got to be tested, and so on,” the US President said.
“China has not been… I know they’re very sensitive… when we suggest they haven’t been that forthcoming,” Biden said.
China Covid surge leaves US worried
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said when Covid is spreading anywhere, but especially in a country as populous and as large as China, of course there is the potential for variants to emerge.
Addressing reporters, Price said: “We have seen variants emerge apparently from other regions of the world that have ultimately reached the United States.”
“This is a transnational — all public health threats are by their very definition transnational. We want to do all we can to see to it that the PRC gets this under control and to put in place prudent steps so that we do everything we can to prevent the spread of any potential variants, should they emerge beyond any country’s borders,” he added.
Also Read: China stats ‘under-represent’ true impact of COVID-19 outbreak: WHO
United States and India are among several countries that have imposed restrictions, including negative Covid test report, on travellers from China after the Xi Jinping ended its strict ‘zero-Covid’ policy after three years.
Hospitals are overwhelmed and long queues have become a common sight in China since early December 2022.
‘Still don’t have complete Covid data from China’
The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticised China’s “very narrow” definition of Covid-19 deaths and warned the official statistics were not showing the “true impact” of the outbreak.
“We still do not have complete data,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said.
“We believe that the current numbers being published from China 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 added.
Since December, China has only recorded 22 Covid deaths. The country has dramatically narrowed the criteria for classifying such fatalities — meaning that Beijing’s own statistics about the unprecedented wave are now widely seen as not reflecting reality.
Ryan pointed out that the definition Beijing is using “requires a respiratory failure” associated with a Covid infection for a fatality to be registered as a Covid death.
“That is a very narrow definition,” he added.
Ryan also emphasised that it was vital to have accurate information about how the virus was spreading and the true impact it was having. He even suggested that individual health professionals could help provide a more accurate picture.
“We do not discourage doctors and nurses reporting these deaths and these cases,” Ryan said.
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