Since China relaxed its controversial zero covid policy last month, the second-largest economy is struggling to deal with the meteoric rise in coronavirus cases throughout the country which is putting a burden on its healthcare system.

British virologist and biologist Jonathan Latham, Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project, a New York non-profit based in said that Beijing is clearly not being open and transparent about case numbers or deaths and that only accurate data can lead to good decisions in China and elsewhere.

“China is early not being open and transparent about case numbers or deaths. This is true for many countries though. It would be great to have truly accurate information on those points, however, since only timely and accurate data can lead to good decisions in china and elsewhere. Good data would also test the theory that newer variants such as omicron have a lower inherent death rate,” said Jonathan to ANI.

“The pandemic response of authorities has generally been very poorly thought out and executed. It is doubtful that warnings from China would have made a difference, either today or back in 2019/2020. Even western warnings in late 2019 were ignored,” he added.