The international community is in the dark about the scale and severity of the current wave of infections in China because Beijing is not sharing enough information.
The lack of transparency from China could delay the identification of new Covid variants that pose a threat to public health. According to the CDC, China is not sharing a lot of genetic information.
New testing requirements were announced by the CDC. All passengers are required to be tested for Covid no later than two days before their flight to the U.S. and present a negative result to the airline. On January 5th, the requirements will be in effect.
India, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan have imposed Covid test requirements on Chinese airline passengers. The Chinese government has had to deal with a surge of infections after relaxing its zero-covid policy.
The Biden administration has limited information on the number of new Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths in China, according to a US federal health official. The official said that the true infection rate is difficult to determine due to the decrease in testing and reporting.
The zero- Covid policy meant that a large portion of the population did not have immunity to the highly transmissible omicron variant. The Biden administration believes that a large number of people in China will be affected by the disease.
The official who declined to be named as a condition of the press call said that they were concerned about a new variant that could emerge in China. There is a chance that a new variant may emerge with so many people in China affected.
According to a statement this week from a public database based in Germany, the latest data shared by health authorities in China shows that Covid variant are similar to those found in the rest of the world.
In the past 180 days, China has shared more Covid cases with the US than the U.S.
China has been urged by the World Health Organization to give more information about what is happening on the ground.
The head of the global health agency said last week that he was very concerned about the situation in China.
Tedros said that in order to make a risk assessment of the situation on the ground, WHO needs more detailed information.
According to Dr. Mike Ryan, the WHO has anecdotal reports of emergency rooms and intensive care units filling up in China.
Ryan didn't have complete knowledge of the impact of the Covid wave in China.
The WHO's Covid technical lead said last week that there are omicron subvariants in China. One of the most immune evasive variant has been found in China.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicted a massive wave of infections in China as Beijing relaxes its zero- Covid policy. According to the report, there will be a lot of disease in the elderly population and a lot of deaths.
Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccines are more effective than China's domestically developed ones. China lags behind other countries when it comes to vaccine coverage for older people.
Ryan said that the protection of the health system is in the interest of seven out of seven people on the planet.
A federal health official said on Wednesday that the U.S. had offered China Covid vaccines and other support, but Beijing had turned them down.
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