China Under-Representing Covid Deaths, Concealing Data, Says WHO

China said it had been open in sharing coronavirus data with the World Health Organization, countering criticism that it hasn't provided enough information about the Covid surge within its borders.

"Since Covid began, China has shared information and data with the international community in an open and transparent manner," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a news briefing Thursday in Beijing, citing genome-sequencing data in the early days of the pandemic.

"We hope that the WHO secretariat will take a science-based, objective and just position, and play a positive role in addressing the pandemic globally," she said.

The comments come as the WHO repeated a call for more transparency from Beijing as China grapples with the end of its Covid Zero policy. The WHO wants rapid, regular and reliable data on hospitalizations, as well as more comprehensive real-time viral sequencing, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing with journalists.

Another WHO official, Mike Ryan, executive director of the body's health emergencies program, said the Chinese numbers probably still under-represent deaths, hospitalizations and intensive-care occupancy, though he praised "increased engagement" in data-sharing from China over the past 10 days.

Mao said China has held three technical meetings with the WHO since Dec. 9, and another would take place Thursday. When asked why the WHO was urging China to provide more data if it has already done its part, Mao said China would continue its exchanges with the global health body.

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