Tag Archives: PUBHEA

Health

U.S. CDC still looking at potential stroke risk from Pfizer bivalent COVID shot

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Jan 26 (Reuters) – New data from one U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) database shows a possible stroke risk link for older adults who received an updated Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 booster shot, but the signal is weaker than what the agency had flagged earlier in January, health officials said on Thursday.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said they had not detected a link between the shots and strokes in two other safety monitoring databases.

The new data was presented at a meeting of outside experts that advise the FDA on vaccine policy.

Earlier this month, U.S. health officials said they had detected the possible link to ischemic strokes in people over age 65 who received the newer booster shots in its Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database. They said at the time it was very unlikely to represent a true clinical risk.

Dr. Nicola Klein of healthcare company Kaiser Permanente, which maintains VSD data for the CDC, said the rate of strokes observed in the database had slowed in recent weeks, but the signal was still statistically significant, meaning likely not by chance.

Most of the confirmed cases had also received a flu vaccine at the same time, which might be a factor, she said.

FDA scientist Richard Forshee said the agency plans to study whether there is any increased risk of stroke from receiving the two shots at the same time.

Both agencies still recommend older adults receive the booster shots, now tailored to target Omicron variants as well as the original coronavirus.

Dr. Walid Gellad, professor of medicine at University of Pittsburgh, said the issue required further investigation.

“Sometimes signals are not clear,” Gellad said in an email. “It makes sense to look into it more, and it doesn’t make sense to change practice given the known benefits (of getting the booster) in this age group.”

(This story has been corrected to fix the name to Nicola from Nicole in paragraph 5)

Reporting by Michael Erman; Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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WHO urges ‘immediate action’ after cough syrup deaths

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LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The World Health Organization has called for “immediate and concerted action” to protect children from contaminated medicines after a spate of child deaths linked to cough syrups last year.

In 2022, more than 300 children – mainly aged under 5 – in Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan died of acute kidney injury, in deaths that were associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said in a statement on Monday.

The medicines, over-the-counter cough syrups, had high levels of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol.

“These contaminants are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and antifreeze agents that can be fatal even taken in small amounts, and should never be found in medicines,” the WHO said.

As well as the countries above, the WHO told Reuters on Monday that the Philippines, Timor Leste, Senegal and Cambodia may potentially be impacted because they may have the medicines on sale. It called for action across its 194 member states to prevent more deaths.

[1/4] Logo of Marion Biotech, a healthcare and pharmaceutical company is seen on a gate outside their office in Noida, India, December 29, 2022. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

“Since these are not isolated incidents, WHO calls on various key stakeholders engaged in the medical supply chain to take immediate and coordinated action,” WHO said.

The WHO has already sent specific product alerts in October and earlier this month, asking for the medicines to be removed from the shelves, for cough syrups made by India’s Maiden Pharmaceuticals and Marion Biotech, which are linked with deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan respectively.

It also issued a warning last year for cough syrups made by four Indonesian manufacturers, PT Yarindo Farmatama, PT Universal Pharmaceutical, PT Konimex and PT AFI Pharma, that were sold domestically.

The companies involved have either denied that their products have been contaminated or declined to comment while investigations are ongoing.

The WHO reiterated its call for the products flagged above to be removed from circulation, and called more widely for countries to ensure that any medicines for sale are approved by competent authorities. It also asked governments and regulators to assign resources to inspect manufacturers, increase market surveillance and take action where required.

It called on manufacturers to only buy raw ingredients from qualified suppliers, test their products more thoroughly and keep records of the process. Suppliers and distributors should check for signs of falsification and only distribute or sell medicines authorised for use, the WHO added.

Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Christina Fincher

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Chinese pray for health in Lunar New Year as COVID death toll rises

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BEIJING, Jan 22 (Reuters) – China rang in the Lunar New Year on Sunday with its people praying for health after three years of stress and financial hardship under the pandemic, as officials reported almost 13,000 new deaths caused by the virus between January 13 and 19.

Queues stretched for about one kilometre (a half-mile) outside the iconic Lama temple in Beijing, which had been repeatedly shut before COVID-19 restrictions ended in early December, with thousands of people waiting for their turn to pray for their loved ones.

One Beijing resident said she wished the year of the rabbit will bring “health to everyone”.

“I think this wave of the pandemic is gone,” said the 57-year-old, who only gave her last name, Fang. “I didn’t get the virus, but my husband and everyone in my family did. I still think it’s important to protect ourselves.”

Earlier, officials reported almost 13,000 deaths related to COVID in hospitals between January 13 and 19, adding to the nearly 60,000 in the month or so before that. Chinese health experts say the wave of infections across the country has already peaked.

The death toll update, from China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, comes amid doubts over Beijing’s data transparency and remains extremely low by global standards.

Hospitals and funeral homes were overwhelmed after China abandoned the world’s strictest regime of COVID controls and mass testing on Dec. 7 in an abrupt policy U-turn, which followed historic protests against the curbs.

The death count reported by Chinese authorities excludes those who died at home, and some doctors have said they are discouraged from putting COVID on death certificates.

China on Jan. 14 reported nearly 60,000 COVID-related deaths in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12, a huge increase from the 5,000-plus deaths reported previously over the entire pandemic period.

Spending by funeral homes on items from body bags to cremation ovens has risen in many provinces, documents show, one of several indications of COVID’s deadly impact in China.

Some health experts expect that more than one million people will die from the disease in China this year, with British-based health data firm Airfinity forecasting COVID fatalities could hit 36,000 a day this week.

As millions of migrant workers return home for Lunar New Year celebrations, health experts are particularly concerned about people living in China’s vast countryside, where medical facilities are poor compared with those in the affluent coastal areas.

About 110 million railway passenger trips are estimated to have been made during Jan. 7-21, the first 15 days of the 40-day Lunar New Year travel rush, up 28% year-on-year, People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, reported.

A total of 26.23 million trips were made on the Lunar New Year eve via railway, highway, ships and airplanes, half the pre-pandemic levels, but up 50.8% from last year, state-run CCTV reported.

The mass movement of people during the holiday period may spread the pandemic, boosting infections in some areas, but a second COVID wave is unlikely in the near term, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Saturday on the Weibo social media platform.

The possibility of a big COVID rebound in China over the next two or three months is remote as 80% of people have been infected, Wu said.

After China re-opened its borders on Jan. 8, some Chinese also booked trips abroad. Asia’s tourist hotspots have been bracing for the return of Chinese tourists, who spent $255 billion a year globally before the pandemic.

“Because of the pandemic, we hadn’t been out of China for three years,” said tourist and business owner Kiki Hu, 28, in Krabi on Thailand’s southwest coast. “Now that we can leave and come here for holiday, I feel so happy and emotional”.

Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Writing by Marius Zaharia
Editing by Shri Navaratnam

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Millions of Chinese workers on the move ahead of Friday travel peak

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  • Half a million people now crossing China’s borders per day
  • China now open to world – state leader tells World Economic Forum
  • Medical workers rush to vaccinate elderly

BEIJING, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Millions of urban workers were on the move across China on Wednesday ahead of the expected Friday peak of its Lunar New Year mass migration, as China’s leaders looked to get its COVID-battered economy moving.

Unfettered when officials last month ended three years of some of the world’s tightest COVID-19 restrictions, workers streamed into railway stations and airports to head to smaller towns and rural homes, sparking fears of a broadening virus outbreak.

Economists are scrutinising the holiday season, known as the Spring Festival, for glimmers of rebounding consumption across the world’s second largest economy after new GDP data on Tuesday confirmed a sharp economic slowdown in China.

While some analysts expect that recovery to be slow, China’s Vice-Premier Liu He declared to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Tuesday that China was open to the world after three years of pandemic isolation.

National Immigration Administration officials said that, on average, half a million people had been moved in or out of China per day since its borders opened on Jan. 8, state media reported.

But as workers flood out of megacities, such as Shanghai, where officials say the virus has peaked, many are heading to towns and villages where unvaccinated elderly have yet to be exposed to COVID and health care systems are less equipped.

LARGE ROLLING SUITCASES, BOXES OF GIFTS

As the COVID surge intensified, some were putting the virus out of their mind as they headed for the departure gates.

Travellers bustled through railway stations and subways in Beijing and Shanghai, many ferrying large wheeled suitcases and boxes stuffed with food and gifts.

“I used to be a little worried (about the COVID-19 epidemic),” said migrant worker Jiang Zhiguang, waiting among the crowds at Shanghai’s Hongqiao Railway Station.

“Now it doesn’t matter anymore. Now it’s okay if you get infected. You’ll just be sick for two days only,” Jiang, aged 30, told Reuters.

The infection rate in the southern city of Guangzhou, capital of China’s most populous province, has now passed 85%, local health officials announced on Wednesday.

In more isolated areas, state medical workers are this week going door-to-door in some outlying villages to vaccinate the elderly, with the official Xinhua news agency describing the effort on Tuesday as the “last mile”.

Clinics in rural villages and towns are now being fitted with oxygenators, and medical vehicles have also been deployed to isolated areas.

While authorities confirmed on Saturday a huge increase in deaths – announcing that nearly 60,000 people with COVID had died in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12 – state media reported that heath officials were not yet ready to give the World Health Organization (WHO) the extra data it is now seeking.

Specifically, the U.N. agency wants information on so-called excess mortality – the number of all deaths beyond the norm during a crisis, the WHO said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.

The Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid published by the official People’s Daily, quoted Chinese experts saying the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention was already monitoring such data, but it would take time before it could be released.

Doctors in both public and private hospitals were being actively discouraged from attributing deaths to COVID, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Reporting By Bernard Orr in Beijing and Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Additional reporting By Xihao Jiang in Shanghai; Writing By Greg Torode; Editing by Michael Perry

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In China, doctors say they are discouraged from citing COVID on death certificates

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BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) – During a busy shift at the height of Beijing’s COVID wave, a physician at a private hospital saw a printed notice in the emergency department: doctors should “try not to” write COVID-induced respiratory failure on death certificates.

Instead, if the deceased had an underlying disease, that should be named as the main cause of death, according to the notice, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

If doctors believe that the death was caused solely by COVID-19 pneumonia, they must report to their superiors, who will arrange for two levels of “expert consultations” before a COVID death is confirmed, it said.

Six doctors at public hospitals across China told Reuters they had either received similar oral instructions discouraging them from attributing deaths to COVID or were aware that their hospitals had such policies.

Some relatives of people who have died with COVID say the disease did not appear on their death certificates, and some patients have reported not being tested for coronavirus despite arriving with respiratory symptoms.

“We have stopped classifying COVID deaths since the reopening in December,” said a doctor at a large public hospital in Shanghai. “It is pointless to do that because almost everyone is positive.”

Such directives have led to criticism by global health experts and the World Health Organization that China has drastically underreported COVID deaths as the coronavirus runs rampant in the country, which abandoned its strict “zero-COVID” regime in December.

On Saturday, officials said 60,000 people with COVID-19 had died in hospitals since China’s policy U-turn, a roughly ten-fold increase from previously reported figures, but still short of expectations of international experts, who have said China could see more than a million COVID-related deaths this year.

China’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) and National Health Commission (NHC) did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The doctors in this article declined to be named because they are not permitted to speak to the media.

Several said they were told such guidance came from “the government”, though none knew from which department, a common situation in China when politically sensitive instructions are disseminated.

Three other doctors at public hospitals in different cities said they were unaware of any such guidance.

One of them, a senior emergency room doctor in Shandong province, said doctors were issuing death certificates based on the actual cause of death, but “how to categorise” those deaths is up to the hospitals or local officials.

‘LOOKS LOW’

Since the start of the pandemic, which first emerged three years ago in its central city of Wuhan, China has drawn heavy criticism for not being transparent over the virus – an accusation it has repeatedly rejected.

Before Saturday, China was reporting five or fewer COVID deaths per day. Of the nearly 60,000 COVID-related fatalities since Dec. 8 it announced on Saturday since, fewer than 10% were caused by respiratory failure because of COVID. The rest resulted from a combination of COVID and other diseases, Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Medical Administration under the National Health Commission (NHC), said on Saturday.

Michael Baker, a public health scholar at the University of Otago in New Zealand, said the updated death toll still “looks low” compared with the high level of infection in China.

“Most countries are finding that most deaths from COVID are caused directly by the infection rather than by a combination of COVID and other diseases,” he said. “By contrast, reported deaths in China are mainly (90%) a combination of COVID and other infections, which also suggests that deaths directly from COVID infection are under-reported in China.”

Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said it was unclear whether the new data accurately reflected actual fatalities, in part because the numbers include only deaths in hospitals.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday recommended that China monitor excess mortality to gain a fuller picture of the impact of the surge in COVID.

Excess mortality is when the number of deaths for a given period is higher than it should be relative to historical averages.

TESTING ENDS

Seven people told Reuters that COVID was not mentioned on the death certificates of their recently deceased relatives, although the relatives had either tested positive for the virus or displayed COVID-like symptoms.

Social media has been full of similar reports.

When a Beijing resident surnamed Yao brought his COVID-positive 87-year-old aunt to a large public hospital late last month with breathing problems, doctors did not ask whether she had the virus and did not mention COVID, Yao said.

“The hospital was full of patients, all in their 80s or 90s, and doctors had no time to talk to anyone,” Yao said, adding that everyone seemed to have similar COVID-like symptoms.

Patients, including his aunt, were rigorously tested, although not for COVID, before being told they had pneumonia. But the hospital told him it had run out of medicine, so they could only go home.

Ten days later she recovered.

Medical staff at public hospitals in several cities in China said PCR testing, which under “zero COVID” was a near daily requirement for large parts of the population, has now been all but abandoned.

Taking the focus off testing may be the best way to maximise resources when hospitals have been overwhelmed, two experts told Reuters.

Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at Hong Kong University, said almost all patients with acute respiratory problems would have COVID: “Since antivirals are in very short supply, I don’t think laboratory testing will make much difference to case management.”

‘BE CAUTIOUS’

A senior doctor in the eastern city of Ningbo said physicians there were told to be “cautious” about saying someone had died of COVID, but if they did wish to do so they would need to get approval.

No other disease required the same level of “caution” for entry on a death certificate, he said.

The doctor at a large public hospital in Shanghai said that weekly death rates since the recent COVID wave were three or four times higher than normal for this time of year. Most had more than one illness, but COVID worsened their conditions, she said.

“On the death certificate we fill in one main cause of death, and two to three sub-causes of death, so we basically leave out COVID,” she said.

“There’s no other way but for us to follow the orders given by the hospital, which come from the government. I am too unimportant to make any decision,” she said.

Reporting by Martin Quin Pollard in Beijing and Engen Tham in Shanghai. Additional reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai and the Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing Newsrooms; Editing by Tony Munroe and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China COVID peak to last 2-3 months, hit rural areas next -expert

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  • Peak of COVID wave seen lasting 2-3 months – epidemiologist
  • Elderly in rural areas particularly at risk
  • People mobility indicators tick up, but yet to fully recover

BEIJING, Jan 13 (Reuters) – The peak of China’s COVID-19 wave is expected to last two to three months, and will soon swell over the vast countryside where medical resources are relatively scarce, a top Chinese epidemiologist has said.

Infections are expected to surge in rural areas as hundreds of millions travel to their home towns for the Lunar New Year holidays, which officially start from Jan. 21, known before the pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people.

China last month abruptly abandoned the strict anti-virus regime of mass lockdowns that fuelled historic protests across the country in late November, and finally reopened its borders this past Sunday.

The abrupt dismantling of restrictions has unleashed the virus onto China’s 1.4 billion people, more than a third of whom live in regions where infections are already past their peak, according to state media.

But the worst of the outbreak was not yet over, warned Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a report published in local media outlet Caixin on Thursday.

“Our priority focus has been on the large cities. It is time to focus on rural areas,” Zeng was quoted as saying.

He said a large number of people in the countryside, where medical facilities are relatively poor, are being left behind, including the elderly, the sick and the disabled.

Authorities have said they were making efforts to improve supplies of antivirals across the country. Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) molnupiravir was made available in China from Friday.

The World Health Organization this week also warned of the risks stemming from holiday travelling.

The UN agency said China was heavily under-reporting deaths from COVID, although it is now providing more information on its outbreak.

“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China has shared relevant information and data with the international community in an open, transparent and responsible manner,” foreign ministry official Wu Xi told reporters.

Health authorities have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers which are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes and the body bags seen coming out of crowded hospitals.

China has not reported COVID fatalities data since Monday. Officials said in December they planned to issue monthly, rather than daily updates, going forward.

Although international health experts have predicted at least 1 million COVID-related deaths this year, China has reported just over 5,000 since the pandemic began, one of the lowest death rates in the world.

DIPLOMATIC TENSIONS

Concerns over data transparency were among the factors that prompted more than a dozen countries to demand pre-departure COVID tests from travellers arriving from China.

Beijing, which had shut its borders from the rest of the world for three years and still demands all visitors get tested before their trip, objects to the curbs.

Wu said accusations by individual countries were “completely unreasonable, unscientific and unfounded.”

Tensions escalated this week with South Korea and Japan, with China retaliating by suspending short-term visas for their nationals. The two countries also limit flights, test travellers from China on arrival, and quarantine the positive ones.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Friday Tokyo will continue to demand transparency, labelling Beijing’s retaliation as extremely “regrettable.”

Parts of China were returning to normal life.

In the bigger cities in particular, residents are increasingly on the move, pointing to a gradual, though so far slow, rebound in consumption and economic activity.

An immigration official said on Friday 490,000 daily trips on average were made in and out of China since it reopened on Jan. 8, only 26% of the pre-pandemic levels.

Singapore-based Chu Wenhong was among those who finally got reunited with their parents for the first time in three years.

“They both got COVID, and are quite old. I feel quite lucky actually, as it wasn’t too serious for them, but their health is not very good,” she said.

CAUTION

While China’s reopening has given a boost to financial assets globally, policymakers around the world worry it may revive inflationary pressures.

However, December’s trade data released on Friday provided reasons to be cautious about China’s recovery pace.

Jin Chaofeng, whose company exports outdoor rattan furniture, said he has no expansion or hiring plans for 2023.

“With the lifting of COVID curbs, domestic demand is expected to improve but not exports,” he said.

Data next week is expected to show China’s economy grew just 2.8% in 2022, its second-slowest since 1976, the final year of Mao Zedong’s decade-long Cultural Revolution, according to a Reuters poll.

Some analysts say last year’s lockdowns will leave permanent scars on China, including by worsening its already bleak demographic outlook.

Growth is then seen rebounding to 4.9% this year, still well below the pre-pandemic trend.

Additional reporting by the Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

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Chinese fret over elderly as WHO warns of holiday COVID surge

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  • Two billion trips expected over Lunar New Year
  • Virus spreading from cities to vulnerable villages
  • WHO says China response challenged by lack of data
  • China’s grand reopening marred by Japan, Korea spat

BEIJING, Jan 12 (Reuters) – People in China worried on Thursday about spreading COVID-19 to aged relatives as they planned returns to their home towns for holidays that the World Health Organization warns could inflame a raging outbreak.

The Lunar New Year holiday, which officially starts on Jan. 21, comes after China last month abandoned a strict anti-virus regime of mass lockdowns that prompted widespread frustration and boiled over into historic protests.

That abrupt U-turn unleashed COVID on a population of 1.4 billion which lacks natural immunity, having been shielded from the virus since it first erupted in late 2019, and includes many elderly who are not fully vaccinated.

The outbreak spreading from China’s mega-cities to rural areas with weaker medical resources is overwhelming some hospitals and crematoriums.

With scant official data from China, the WHO on Wednesday said it would be challenging to manage the virus over a holiday period considered the world’s largest annual migration of people.

Other warnings from top Chinese health experts for people to avoid aged relatives during the holidays shot to the most-read item on China’s Twitter-like Weibo on Thursday.

“This is a very pertinent suggestion, return to the home town … or put the health of the elderly first,” wrote one user. Another user said they did not dare visit their grandmother and would leave gifts for her on the doorstep.

“This is almost the New Year and I’m afraid that she will be lonely,” the user wrote.

More than two billion trips are expected across China over the broader Lunar New Year period, which started on Jan. 7 and runs for 40 days, according to the transport ministry. That is double last year’s trips and 70% of those seen in 2019 before the pandemic emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

“I will stay at home and avoid going to very crowded places,” said Chen, a 27-year-old documentary filmmaker in Beijing who plans to visit her home town in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

Chen said she would disinfect her hands before meeting elderly relatives, such as her grandmother, who has managed to avoid infection.

LACK OF DATA CRITICISED

The WHO and foreign governments have criticised China for not being forthright about the scale and severity of its outbreak, which has led several countries to impose restrictions on Chinese travellers.

China has been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers that are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes. The country did not report COVID deaths data on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Liang Wannian, the head of a COVID expert panel under the national health authority, told reporters that deaths could only be accurately counted after the pandemic was over.

Although international health experts have predicted at least a million COVID-related deaths this year, China has reported just over 5,000 since the pandemic began, a fraction of what other countries have reported as they removed restrictions.

Looking beyond the death toll, investors are betting that China’s reopening will reinvigorate a $17 trillion economy suffering its lowest growth in nearly half a century.

That has lifted Asian stocks to a seven-month peak, strengthened China’s yuan currency against the U.S. dollar and bolstered global oil prices on hopes of fresh demand from the world’s top importer.

China’s growth is likely to rebound to 4.9% in 2023, according to a Reuters poll of economists released on Thursday. GDP likely grew just 2.8% in 2022 as lockdowns weighed on activity and confidence, according to the poll, braking sharply from 8.4% growth in 2021.

TRAVEL CHALLENGES

After three years of isolation from the outside world, China on Sunday dropped quarantine mandates for inbound visitors in a move expected to eventually also stimulate outbound travel.

But concerns about China’s outbreak has prompted more than a dozen countries to demand negative COVID test results from people arriving from China.

Among them, South Korea and Japan have also limited flights and require tests on arrival, with passengers showing up as positive being sent to quarantine.

In a deepening spat between the regional rivals, China has in turn stopped issuing short-term visas and suspended transit visa exemptions for South Korean and Japanese nationals.

Despite Beijing’s lifting of travel curbs, outbound flight bookings from China were at only 15% of pre-pandemic levels in the week after the country announced it would reopen its borders, travel data firm ForwardKeys said on Thursday.

Low airline capacity, high air fares, new pre-flight COVID-19 testing requirements by many countries and a backlog of passport and visa applications pose challenges as the industry looks to recovery, ForwardKeys Vice President Insights Olivier Ponti said in a statement.

Hong Kong Airlines on Thursday said it does not expect to return to capacity until mid-2024.

Reporting by Bernard Orr, Liz Lee, Eduardo Baptista and Jing Wang in Beijing; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China imposes transit curbs for S.Korea, Japan in growing COVID spat

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  • New curbs for S.Korea, Japan nationals transiting China
  • China says visa suspensions for S.Korea, Japan “reasonable”
  • Escalating diplomatic spat may complicate economic relations
  • Social media users lash out at S.Korea’s “insulting” COVID curbs

BEIJING, Jan 11 (Reuters) – China introduced transit curbs for South Korean and Japanese nationals on Wednesday, in an escalating diplomatic spat over COVID-19 curbs that is marring the grand re-opening of the world’s second-largest economy after three years of isolation.

China removed quarantine mandates for inbound travellers on Sunday, one of the last vestiges of the world’s strictest regime of COVID restrictions, which Beijing abruptly began dismantling in early December after historic protests.

But worries over the scale and impact of the outbreak in China, where the virus is spreading unchecked, have prompted more than a dozen countries to demand negative COVID test results from people arriving from China.

Among them, South Korea and Japan have also limited flights and require tests on arrival, with passengers showing up as positive being sent to quarantine. In South Korea, quarantine is at the traveller’s own cost.

In response, the Chinese embassies in Seoul and Tokyo said on Tuesday they had suspended issuing short-term visas for travellers to China, with the foreign ministry slamming the testing requirements as “discriminatory.”

That prompted an official protest from Japan to China, while South Korean foreign minister Park Jin said that Seoul’s decision was based on scientific evidence, not discriminatory and that China’s countermeasures were “deeply regrettable.”

In a sign of escalating tensions on Wednesday, China’s immigration authority suspended its transit visa exemptions for South Koreans and Japanese.

The spat may affect economic relations between the three neighbours as well.

Japanese department store operator Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd (3099.T) and supermarket operator Aeon Co (8267.T) said they may have to rethink personnel transfers to China depending on how long the suspension lasts.

“We won’t be able to make short-term business trips, but such trips had dwindled during COVID anyway, so we don’t expect an immediate impact. But if the situation lasts long, there will be an effect,” said a South Korean chip industry source who declined to be identified, as the person was not authorised to speak to media.

China requires negative test results from visitors from all countries.

COUNTING DEATHS

Some of the governments that announced curbs on travellers from China cited concerns over Beijing’s data transparency.

The World Health Organization has said China was underreporting deaths.

China’s health authorities have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers that are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes. In a first, they did not report COVID fatalities data on Tuesday.

China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Health Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Without mentioning whether daily reporting had been discontinued, Liang Wannian, head of a COVID expert panel under the national health authority, told reporters deaths can only be accurately counted after the pandemic is over.

China should ultimately determine death figures by looking at excess mortality, Wang Guiqiang, the head of the infectious diseases department at Peking University First Hospital said at the same news conference.

Although international health experts have predicted at least one million COVID-related deaths this year, China has reported just over 5,000 since the pandemic began, a fraction of what other countries have reported as they reopened.

China says it has been transparent with its data.

State media said the COVID wave was already past its peak in the provinces of Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Sichuan and Hainan, as well as in the large cities of Beijing and Chongqing – home to more than 500 million people combined.

‘INSULTING’

On Wednesday, Chinese state media devoted extensive coverage of what they called as “discriminatory” border rules in South Korea and Japan.

Nationalist tabloid Global Times defended Beijing’s retaliation as a “direct and reasonable response to protect its own legitimate interests, particularly after some countries are continuing hyping up China’s epidemic situation by putting travel restrictions for political manipulation.”

Chinese social media anger mainly targeted South Korea, whose border measures are the strictest among the countries that announced new rules.

Videos circulating online showed special lanes coordinated by soldiers in uniform for arrivals from China at the airport, with travellers given yellow lanyards with QR codes for processing test results.

One user of China’s Twitter-like Weibo said singling out Chinese travellers was “insulting” and akin to “people treated as criminals and paraded on the streets.”

Annual spending by Chinese tourists abroad reached $250 billion before the pandemic, with South Korea and Japan among the top shopping destinations.

Repeated lockdowns have hammered China’s $17 trillion economy. The World Bank estimated its 2022 growth slumped to 2.7%, its second-slowest pace since the mid-1970s after 2020.

It predicted a rebound to 4.3% for 2023, but that is 0.9 percentage points below its June forecast because of the severity of COVID disruptions and weakening external demand.

($1 = 6.7666 Chinese yuan renminbi)

Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Kaori Kaneko, Mari Shiraki and Elaine Lies in Tokyo; Joyce Lee, Hyunsu Yim and Heekyong Yang in Seoul
Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Kim Coghill

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China retaliates against South Korea’s COVID curbs, says outbreaks past peaks

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  • China embassy decries “discriminatory” S.Korea border rules
  • Some cities say peak of COVID infections was last month
  • Chinese state media criticise Pfizer over Paxlovid price

BEIJING, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Beijing retaliated on Tuesday against South Korea’s COVID-19 curbs on travellers from China, while state media further downplayed the severity of the outbreak in the last major economy to reopen its borders after three years of isolation.

China ditched mandatory quarantines for arrivals and allowed travel to resume across its border with Hong Kong on Sunday, removing the last major restrictions under the “zero-COVID” regime which it abruptly began dismantling in early December after historic protests against the curbs.

But the virus is spreading unchecked among its 1.4 billion people and worries over the scale and impact of its outbreak have prompted South Korea, the United States and other countries to require negative COVID tests from travellers from China.

Although China imposes similar testing requirements for all arrivals, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday the entry curbs for Chinese travellers were “discriminatory.”

“We will take reciprocal measures,” Wang said, without elaborating.

The Chinese embassy in South Korea has suspended issuing short-term visas for South Korean visitors, it said on Tuesday, the first retaliatory move against nations imposing COVID-19 curbs on travellers from China.

The embassy will adjust the policy subject to the lifting of South Korea’s “discriminatory entry restrictions” against China, it said on its official WeChat account.

Kyodo news agency, quoting multiple travel industry sources, said China has told travel agencies that it has stopped issuing new visas in Japan. An AFP journalist tweeted that the Chinese embassy in Japan released a statement confirming the curbs on Tuesday but removed it from its website within minutes.

With the virus let loose, China has stopped publishing daily infection tallies. It has been reporting five or fewer deaths a day since the policy U-turn, figures that have been disputed by the World Health Organization and are inconsistent with funeral reporting surging demand.

Some governments have raised concerns about Beijing’s data transparency as international experts predict at least 1 million deaths in China this year. Washington has also raised concerns about future potential mutations of the virus.

China dismisses criticism over its data as politically-motivated attempts to smear its “success” in handling the pandemic and said any future mutations are likely to be more infectious but less harmful.

“Since the outbreak, China has had an open and transparent attitude,” the foreign ministry’s Wang said.

PAST THE PEAK

State media downplayed the severity of the outbreak.

An article in Health Times, a publication managed by People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, quoted several officials as saying infections have been declining in the capital Beijing and several Chinese provinces.

Kan Quan, director of the Office of the Henan Provincial Epidemic Prevention and Control, said nearly 90% of people in the central province of 100 million people had been infected as of Jan. 6.

Beijing acting mayor Yin Yong said the capital was also past its peak. Li Pan, from the Municipal Health Commission in the city of Chongqing, said the peak there was reached on Dec. 20.

In the eastern province of Jiangsu, the peak was reached on Dec. 22, while in neighbouring Zheijiang province “the first wave of infections has passed smoothly,” officials said.

Financial markets looked through the latest border curbs as mere inconvenience, with the yuan hitting a nearly five-month high.

Although daily flights in and out of China are still at a tenth of pre-COVID levels, businesses across Asia, from South Korean and Japanese shop owners to Thai tour bus operators and K-pop groups celebrated the prospect of more Chinese tourists.

Chinese shoppers spent $250 billion a year overseas before COVID.

PFIZER CRITICISM

The border rules were not the only COVID conflict brewing in China.

State media lashed out at Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) over the price for its COVID treatment Paxlovid.

“It is not a secret that U.S. capital forces have already accumulated quite a fortune from the world via selling vaccines and drugs, and the U.S. government has been coordinating all along,” nationalist tabloid Global Times said in an editorial.

Pfizer’s Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Monday the company was in discussions with Chinese authorities about a price for Paxlovid, but not over licensing a generic version in China.

China’s abrupt change of course in COVID policies has caught many hospitals ill-equipped, while smaller cities were left scrambling to secure basic anti-fever drugs.

Yu Weishi, chairman of Youcare Pharmaceutical Group, told Reuters his firm boosted output of its anti-fever drugs five-fold to one million boxes a day in the past month.

Wang Lili, general manager at another pharmaceutical firm, CR Double Crane (600062.SS), told Reuters that intravenous drips were their most in-demand product.

“We are running 24/7,” Wang said.

Reporting by Beijing and Shanghai bureaus; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Chinese rush to renew passports as COVID border curbs lifted

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  • China dropped quarantine for visitors on Sunday
  • Latest move in easing that has let virus run free
  • Several nations demand COVID tests from China travellers
  • Chinese stocks, yuan rally on growth hopes

BEIJING, Jan 9 (Reuters) – People joined long queues outside immigration offices in Beijing on Monday, eager to renew their passports after China dropped COVID border controls that had largely prevented its 1.4 billion residents from travelling for three years.

Sunday’s reopening is one of the last steps in China’s dismantling of its “zero-COVID” regime, which began last month after historic protests against curbs that kept the virus at bay but caused widespread frustration among its people.

Waiting to renew his passport in a line of more than 100 people in China’s capital, 67-year-old retiree Yang Jianguo told Reuters he was planning to travel to the United States to see his daughter for the first time in three years.

“She got married last year but had to postpone the wedding ceremony because we couldn’t go over to attend it. We’re very glad we can now go,” Yang said, standing alongside his wife.

China’s currency and stock markets strengthened on Monday, as investors bet the reopening could help reinvigorate a $17 trillion economy suffering its lowest growth in nearly half a century.

Beijing’s move to drop quarantine requirements for visitors is expected to boost outbound travel, as residents will not face those restrictions when they return.

But flights are scarce and several nations are demanding negative tests from visitors from China, seeking to contain an outbreak that is overwhelming many of China’s hospitals and crematoriums. China, too, requires pre-departure negative COVID tests from travellers.

China’s top health officials and state media have repeatedly said COVID infections are peaking across the country and they are playing down the threat now posed by the disease.

“Life is moving forward again!,” the official newspaper of the Communist Party, the People’s Daily, wrote in an editorial praising the government’s virus policies late on Sunday which it said had moved from “preventing infection” to “preventing severe disease”.

“Today, the virus is weak, we are stronger.”

Officially, China has reported just 5,272 COVID-related deaths as of Jan. 8, one of the lowest rates of death from the infection in the world.

But the World Health Organization has said China is under-reporting the scale of the outbreak and international virus experts estimate more than one million people in the country could die from the disease this year.

Shrugging off those gloomy forecasts, Asian shares climbed to a five-month high on Monday while China’s yuan firmed to its strongest level against the dollar since mid-August.

China’s blue-chip index (.CSI300) gained 0.7%, while the Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) rose 0.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (.HSI) climbed 1.6%.

“The ending of the zero-COVID policy is … going to have a major positive impact on domestic spending,” Ralph Hamers, group chief executive officer at UBS, told the Swiss bank’s annual Greater China conference on Monday.

“We believe there is a lot of opportunity for those committed to investing in China.”

‘HUGE RELIEF’

“It’s a huge relief just to be able to go back to normal … just come back to China, get off the plane, get myself a taxi and just go home,” Michael Harrold, 61, a copy editor in Beijing told Reuters at Beijing Capital International Airport on Sunday after he arrived on a flight from Warsaw.

Harrold said he had been anticipating having to quarantine and do several rounds of testing on his return when he left for Europe for a Christmas break in early December.

State broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that direct flights from South Korea to China were close to sold out. The report quickly shot to the most-read item on Chinese social media site Weibo.

In the near term, a spike in demand from travellers will be hampered by the limited number of flights to and from China, which are currently at a small fraction of pre-COVID levels.

Flight Master data showed that on Sunday, China had a total of 245 international inbound and outbound flights, compared with 2,546 flights on the same day in 2019 – a fall of 91%.

Korean Air said earlier this month that it was halting a plan to increase flights to China due to Seoul’s cautious stance towards Chinese travellers. South Korea like many other countries now requires travellers from China, Macau and Hong Kong to provide negative COVID test results before departure.

Taiwan, which started testing arrivals from China on Jan. 1, said on Monday that nearly 20% of those tested so far were positive for COVID.

China’s domestic tourism revenue in 2023 is expected to recover to 70-75% of pre-COVID levels, but the number of inbound and outbound trips is forecast to recover to only 30-40% of pre-COVID levels this year, China News reported on Sunday.

Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Liz Lee, Josh Arslan, Eduardo Baptista and Sophie Yu in Beijing; Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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