As the UK joined other countries in bringing in travel restrictions due to a lack of data, the World Health Organisation urged China to share specific, real-time information on its Covid surge.
WHO Covid experts met Chinese officials on Friday and again stressed the importance of transparency and regular sharing of data to formulate accurate risk assessments.
More genetic data, data on hospitalisations, intensive care unit admissions and deaths, and data on vaccinations were requested by the WHO.
The Chinese scientists were invited by the WHO to present their data at the meeting.
According to the National Health Commission, the meeting only involved the exchange of views with the WHO and more technical exchanges would be held.
The return of health checks in Europe and around the world has been spurred by a surge in Covid infections in China and doubts about its official data.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese workers are expected to return to their hometowns after China loosens its travel restrictions in January and lunar new year later in the year.
The number of emergency patients doubled in the past few days, prompting calls for non-urgent patients to be moved to smaller hospitals.
Covid patients accounted for 80% of the visits to the emergency room at the city's Ruijin hospital.
In order to align with US policy, the UK has brought in restrictions. There is a lack of reliable data from China and that's why the decision was made.
The US attributed its recent change to policy to the lack of information on Covid variant and concerns that the increased cases in China could lead to the development of new variant.
The chair of the Commons defence select committee suggested that the emergency response committee should have been convened due to concerns about the reliability of China's data.
He told LBC radio that they don't know what variant of Covid have developed in China. The later you leave any action, the less impact it will have.
As Chinese foreign travel resumed, Singapore will take a cautious approach to increasing capacity. The health ministry of Singapore said the emergence of new and more dangerous variant was its main concern.
The data on Covid variant provided by Beijing was not enough to bring back mandatory testing for travellers coming into the borderless Schengen area from China via Germany. We have to rely on ourselves to look at individual flights.
Chinese state media called the return of testing requirements for travellers "discriminatory" and an attempt to undermine China's reopening.
The Global Times reported that a senior Covid official said on Thursday that China played an active role in global pathogen monitoring and would alert the WHO when a new variant is discovered.
With the news agency.
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