Why is the world worried about China's latest COVID wave?

Beijing, Jan 03: Amid rising COVID-19 infections and crumbling healthcare infrastructure in China, a growing number of countries are worried about the accuracy of its case and mortality data surrounding the latest outbreak. Let us now take a look at why the latest covid wave in China is causing a global concern.

Unreliable data

Beijing has recently admitted that the scale of the outbreak has become 'impossible' to track following the end of mandatory mass testing last month. Notably, China's National Health Commission (NHC) reportedly stopped publishing the daily COVID-19 update, which typically made up the bulk of the infection tally, without stating any reason, raising doubts about its government's transparency.

The world's most populous country reported only 2097 cases on Sunday, but there is a general mistrust around those numbers. China rolled back many of its tough pandemic restrictions earlier this month, allowing the virus to spread in a country that had seen relatively few infections since an initial devastating outbreak in the city of Wuhan in early 2020. The spiralling of infections led to shortages of cold medicine, long lines at fever clinics, and emergency rooms turning away patients because they were at capacity. Cremations have risen several-fold, with a request from overburdened funeral homes in the city of Guangzhou for families to postpone funeral services until next month.

China has not reported this widely and blamed Western media for hyping up the situation. The government has been accused of controlling information about the outbreak since the start of the pandemic.

Beijing's decision to lift all travel restrictions, including scrapping of quarantine for inbound travellers from January 8 ahead of Chinese New Year, has also sparked concerns around the world. Millions of Chinese are expected to travel to various parts of the world for holiday during this period. The move has necessitated travel curbs from incoming travellers from China in many countries. Several countries including India, UK, France, United States, Australia, Canada and a host of other countries had said they were imposing testing restrictions on arrivals from China because of a lack of transparency on infection data.

However, China's foreign ministry labelled travel entry curbs imposed by some countries as 'simply unreasonable', saying they 'lacked scientific basis'. "We are willing to improve communication with the world," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing.

Concern over new variants

The COVID-19 crisis in China is creating more opportunities for the virus to change, spurring concern that a dangerous new variant could emerge anytime. Although there is no evidence of new variants emerging from the current wave, 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.

Top CDC official Xu Wenbo earlier said that China was developing a national genetic database of COVID samples derived from hospital surveillance that would help track mutations.

Chinese health experts have said in recent days that the Omicron subvariants BA.5.2 and BF.7 are most prevalent in Beijing, in response to public fears that the Delta variant may still be circulating. They said Omicron also remained the most dominant strain in Shanghai, AFP reported.

China tracking its citizens' trash

As the virus spreads unchecked in China, authorities have been ordered to monitor wastewater as an early warning system for coronavirus infection in cities. The technique, also known as 'sewage surveillance', appeared on China's national COVID-19 directives for the first time as the country prepares to reopen borders on January 8 ahead of Chinese New Year.

The directive has asked local governments to test wastewater from households flowing into water treatment plants to indicate community infection levels and distribution of variants, according to reports. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3205344/china-orders-covid-19-waste-water-watch-cities-track-variants-cases-surge

Experts believe that the data would indicate community infection levels and the dynamic distribution of variants of particular concern, boosting pandemic preparation and the planning of a targeted response.