China hits back at WHO over lack of data transparency remarks amid deadly COVID outbreak

China hit back at WHO's remarks blaming the nation for not being transparent regarding COVID-19 data esepcially since the recent deadly outbreak in the country. "China has been sharing information and data with the international community in an open and transparent manner," claimed Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a regular press briefing on Wednesday. The World Health Organisation (WHO), on the same day, had expressed concerns that China's official statistics were not showing the true impact of the current surge in COVID-19 cases.

Wang was asked how China is addressing the concerns raised by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other countries about the "reliability and transparency of the data China publishes". The spokesperson defended China, slamming the WHO and said, "We reported the spread of the virus to the WHO at the earliest opportunity. We immediately sequenced and published the genome of the virus and shared with the world China’s protocols for diagnostics, treatment and containment."

He further stated that China and WHO had five technical exchanges with the organisation in the past month itself with the latest technical exchange with WHO’s headquarters, regional office and China office occuring on Tuesday. He also claimed that WHO has said "on multiple occasions that the information and data that China shared helped scientists from other countries to learn about the evolution of the virus and gave the global science community confidence in China’s COVID response".

"WHO still believes that deaths are heavily under-reported from China," said the WHO's emergencies director, Michael Ryan during a press conference on Wednesday before Wang's remarks. Ryan blamed Beijing's narrow definition of what constitutes a COVID-19 death, and also pointed to "the need for doctors in the public health system to be encouraged to report these cases, and not discouraged". "We would like to stress again that China has been sharing relevant information and data in a timely, open and transparent manner in accordance with the law," added Wang.

China sharing info on genomic sequencing, says Wang

"Relevant Chinese departments and institutions continue to share the genomic sequencing data on infections in China via the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID)," said Wang. All this has received recognition from the WHO and the wider international community, he stated.

The WHO Regional Director for Europe noted recently that China had been sharing virus sequencing information with the international community. From the information available to the WHO, the situation in China is not anticipated to significantly impact the COVID-19 epidemiological situation in the WHO European Region at this time. 

Ryan warned that, despite increased collaboration with China, the WHO still did not have "adequate information to make a full, comprehensive risk assessment". China abruptly dropped its "zero-COVID" approach last month after three years of enforcing some of the harshest anti-pandemic restrictions in the world. That unleashed a wave of infections that have packed hospitals and overwhelmed crematoriums.

However, according to official figures, only 37 COVID-related deaths have been recorded in China since last month out of a population of 1.4 billion. This discrepancy has led a number of countries, including Australia, to introduce policies requiring travellers from China to take a pre-departure COVID-19 test and provide a negative result before departing. "In the absence of data, countries have made a decision to take a precautionary approach and [WHO has] said that that is understandable in the circumstances," Ryan said.