Lack of info on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concerns

Moves by the U.S., Japan, and others to mandate COVID-19 tests for passengers arriving from China reflect global concern that new variants could emerge in its ongoing explosive outbreak — and the government may not inform the rest of the world quickly enough.

There have been no reports of new variants to date. But given the country’s track record, the worry is that China may not be sharing data on any signs of evolving strains that could spark fresh outbreaks elsewhere.

The U.S., in announcing a negative test requirement Wednesday for passengers from China, cited both the surge in infections and what it said was a lack of information, including the genomic sequencing of the virus strains in the country.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed a similar concern about a lack of information when he announced a testing requirement for passengers from China earlier this week.

More broadly, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said recently that the WHO needs more information on the severity of the outbreak in China, particularly regarding hospital and ICU admissions, “in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground.”

That dubiousness, tinged with anger, on the part of the international community is a direct outcome of the ruling Communist Party’s sudden and poorly prepared exiting of its hardline policies, said Miles Yu, director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute think tank.

“You can’t conduct the lunacy of zero-covid lockdowns for such a long period of time, which was doomed to fail, and then suddenly unleash a multitude of the infected from a caged China to the world to risk further infections of potentially hundreds of millions more in other countries,” Yu said in an email.

India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Italy have also announced various testing requirements for passengers from China. German health authorities are monitoring the situation but have not taken similar pre-emptive steps.

“We have no indication that a more dangerous variant has developed in this outbreak in China that would be grounds to declare a virus variant area, which would bring corresponding travel restrictions,” Health Ministry spokesperson Sebastian Guelde said.