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China defends its COVID response after WHO, Biden concerns

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  • China says outbreak is controllable
  • WHO says China under-reporting hospital admissions, deaths
  • Official data at odds with packed hospitals, crematoriums
  • Asian shares up on hopes China reopening stimulates growth

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Jan 5 (Reuters) – China defended on Thursday its handling of its raging COVID-19 outbreak after U.S. President Joe Biden voiced concern and the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Beijing was under-reporting virus deaths.

The WHO’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, said on Wednesday in some of the U.N. health agency’s most critical remarks to date, that Chinese officials were under-representing data on several fronts.

China scrapped its stringent COVID controls last month after protests against them, abandoning a policy that had shielded its 1.4 billion population from the virus for three years.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press briefing in Beijing that China had transparently and quickly shared COVID data with the WHO.

Mao said that China’s “epidemic situation is controllable” and that it hoped the WHO would “uphold a scientific, objective, and impartial position”.

“Facts have proved that China has always, in accordance with the principles of legality, timeliness, openness and transparency, maintained close communication and shared relevant information and data with the WHO in a timely manner,” Mao said.

China reported one new COVID death in the mainland for Wednesday, compared with five a day earlier, bringing its official death toll to 5,259.

Ryan said on Wednesday the numbers China was publishing under-represented hospital admissions, intensive care unit patients and deaths.

Hours later, U.S. President Joe Biden also raised concern about China’s handling of a COVID outbreak that is filling hospitals and overwhelming some funeral homes.

“They’re very sensitive … when we suggest they haven’t been that forthcoming,” Biden told reporters while on a visit to Kentucky.

The French health minister voiced similar fears while German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach voiced concern about a new COVID subvariant linked to growing hospitalisations in the northeastern United States.

CROWDED HOSPITAL

The United States is one of more than a dozen countries that have imposed restrictions on travellers from China.

China has criticised such border controls as unreasonable and unscientific and the government said on Thursday that its border with its special administrative region of Hong Kong would also reopen on Sunday, for the first time in three years.

Millions of people will be travelling within China later this month for the Lunar New Year holiday.

China’s government has played down the severity of the situation in recent days and the state-run Global Times said in an article on Wednesday that COVID had peaked in several cities including the capital, Beijing, citing interviews with doctors.

But at a hospital in Shanghai’s suburban Qingpu district, patients on beds lined the corridors of the emergency treatment area and main lobby on Thursday, most of them elderly and several breathing with oxygen tanks, a Reuters witness said.

A notice on a board advised that patients would have to wait an average of five hours to be seen.

Staff declared one elderly patient dead and pinned a note to the body on the floor stating the cause of death “respiratory failure”.

Police patrolled outside a nearby crematorium, where a stream of mourners carried wreathes and waited to collect the ashes of loved ones.

DATA GAPS

With one of the lowest official COVID death tolls in the world, China has been routinely accused of under-reporting for political reasons.

In December last year, the WHO said it had received no data from China on new COVID hospitalisations since Beijing lifted its zero-COVID policy.

In its latest weekly report, the WHO said China reported 218,019 new weekly COVID cases as of Jan. 1, adding that gaps in data might be due to authorities simply struggling to tally cases.

The methods for counting COVID deaths have varied across countries since the pandemic first erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Chinese health officials have said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure in patients who had the virus are classified as COVID deaths.

But disease experts outside China have said its approach would miss several other widely recognised types of fatal COVID complications, from blood clots to heart attacks as well as sepsis and kidney failure.

International health experts predict at least 1 million COVID-related deaths in China this year without urgent action. British-based health data firm Airfinity has estimated about 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID.

Surging COVID infections are hurting demand in China’s $17 trillion economy, with a private-sector survey on Thursday showing services activity shrank in December.

But investors remain optimistic that China’s dismantling of COVID controls will eventually help revive growth that has slid to its lowest rate in nearly half a century. Those hopes were seen lifting Asian equity markets (.MIAPJ0000PUS) on Thursday.

“China reopening has a big impact … worldwide,” said Joanne Goh, an investment strategist at DBS Bank in Singapore, adding the move would spur tourism and consumption and ease supply-chain crunches seen last year.

(This story has been refiled to correct punctuation in headline.)

Reporting by Liz Lee, Eduardo Baptista and Bernard Orr in Beijing, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Tom Westbrook in Singapore, Steve Holland in Hebron, Kentucky; Writing by John Geddie and Greg Torode; Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China pledges ‘final victory’ over COVID as outbreak raises global alarm

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  • Virus spreading fast in China after policy U-turn
  • Japan latest country requiring tests from China arrivals
  • EU meeting to discuss China travel policy
  • WHO seeking data from Chinese scientists

BEIJING, Jan 4 (Reuters) – Global health officials tried to determine the facts of China’s raging COVID-19 outbreak and how to prevent a further spread as the government’s mouthpiece newspaper on Wednesday rallied citizens for a “final victory” over the virus.

China’s axing of its stringent virus curbs last month has unleashed COVID on a 1.4 billion population that has little natural immunity having been shielded from the virus since it emerged in its Wuhan city three years ago.

Funeral homes have reported a spike in demand for their services, hospitals are packed with patients, and international health experts predict at least one million deaths in China this year.

But officially, China has reported a small number of COVID deaths since the policy U-turn and has played down concerns about a disease that it was previously at pains to eradicate through mass lockdowns even as the rest of the world opened up.

“China and the Chinese people will surely win the final victory against the epidemic,” Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said in an editorial, rebutting criticism of its tough anti-virus regime that triggered historic protests late last year.

As it now dismantles those restrictions, China has been particularly critical of decisions by some countries to impose a requirement for a COVID test on its citizens, saying they are unreasonable and lack scientific basis.

Japan became the latest country to mandate pre-departure COVID testing for travellers from China, following similar measures by the United States, Britain, South Korea and others.

Health officials from the 27-member European Union are due to meet on Wednesday to discuss a coordinated response to China travel. Most European Union countries favour pre-departure COVID testing for visitors from China.

China, which has been largely shut off from the world since the pandemic began in late 2019, will stop requiring inbound travellers to quarantine from Jan. 8. But it will still demand that arriving passengers get tested before they begin their journeys.

DOUBT ON DATA

Meanwhile, World Health Organization officials met Chinese scientists on Tuesday amid concern over the accuracy of China’s data on the spread and evolution of its outbreak.

The U.N. agency had invited the scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing and to share data on hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations.

The WHO would release information about the talks later, probably at a Wednesday briefing, its spokesperson said. The spokesperson earlier said the agency expected a “detailed discussion” about circulating variants in China, and globally.

Last month, Reuters reported that the WHO had not received data from China on new COVID hospitalisations since Beijing’s policy shift, prompting some health experts to question whether it might be concealing the extent of its outbreak.

China reported five new COVID-19 deaths for Tuesday, compared with three a day earlier, bringing the official death toll to 5,258, very low by global standards.

But the toll is widely believed to be much higher. British-based health data firm Airfinity has said about 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID.

There were chaotic scenes at Shanghai’s Zhongshan hospital where patients, many of them elderly, jostled for space on Tuesday in packed halls between makeshift beds where people used oxygen ventilators and got intravenous drips.

With COVID disruptions slowing China’s $17 trillion economy to its lowest growth in nearly half a century, investors are now hoping policymakers will intervene to counter the slide.

China’s yuan hovered at a four-month high against the dollar on Wednesday, after its finance minister pledged to step up fiscal expansion this year, days after the central bank said it would implement more policy support for the economy.

BOOKING BOOM

Despite some countries imposing restrictions on Chinese visitors, interest in outbound travel from the world’s most populous country is cranking up, state media reported.

Bookings for international flights from China have risen by 145% year-on-year in recent days, the government-run China Daily newspaper reported, citing data from travel platform Trip.com.

The number of international flights to and from China is still a fraction of pre-COVID levels. The government has said it will increase flights and make it easier for people to travel abroad.

Thailand, a major destination for Chinese tourists, is expecting at least five million Chinese arrivals this year, its tourism authority said on Tuesday.

More than 11 million Chinese tourists visited Thailand in 2019, nearly a third of its total visitors.

But there are already signs that an increase in travel from China could pose problems abroad.

South Korea, which began testing travellers from China for COVID on Monday, said more than a fifth of the test results were positive.

Authorities there were hunting on Wednesday for one Chinese national who tested positive but went missing while awaiting quarantine. The person, who was not identified, could face up to a year in prison or fines of 10 million won ($7,840).

Reporting by Bernard Orr and Liz Lee in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Hyonhee Shin in Seoul and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China state media plays down COVID wave severity before WHO meet

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  • State media says severe illness from COVID is rare
  • Chinese scientists expected to brief WHO
  • China factory activity shrinks in December

BEIJING, Jan 3 (Reuters) – China’s state media played down the severity on Tuesday of the COVID-19 wave surging over the country, with its scientists expected to give a briefing to the World Health Organization on the evolution of the virus later in the day.

China’s abrupt U-turn on COVID controls on Dec. 7, as well as the accuracy of its case and mortality data, have come under increasing scrutiny at home and overseas and prompted some countries to impose travel curbs.

The policy shift followed protests over the “zero COVID” approach championed by President Xi Jinping, marking the strongest show of public defiance in his decade-old presidency and coinciding with the slowest growth in China in nearly half a century.

As the virus spreads unchecked, funeral parlours report a spike in demand for their services and international health experts predict at least one million deaths in the world’s most populous country this year.

China reported three new COVID deaths for Monday, up from one for Sunday. Its official death toll since the pandemic began now stands at 5,253.

In an article on Tuesday, People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, cited several Chinese experts as saying the illness caused by the virus was relatively mild for most people.

“Severe and critical illnesses account for 3% to 4% of infected patients currently admitted to designated hospitals in Beijing,” Tong Zhaohui, Vice President of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, told the newspaper.

Kang Yan, head of West China Tianfu Hospital of Sichuan University, said that in the past three weeks, a total of 46 critically ill patients have been admitted to intensive care units, accounting for about 1% of symptomatic infections.

More than 80% of those living in the southwestern Sichuan province have been infected, local health authorities said.

The World Health Organization on Friday urged China’s health officials to regularly share specific and real-time information on the COVID situation.

The agency has invited Chinese scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing at a meeting of a technical advisory group scheduled for Tuesday. It has also asked China to share data on hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations.

The European Union has offered free COVID vaccines to China to help contain the outbreak, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

EU government health officials will hold talks on Wednesday on a coordinated response to China’s outbreak, the Swedish EU presidency said on Monday.

The United States, France, Australia, India and others will require mandatory COVID tests on travellers from China, while Belgium said it will test wastewater from planes from China for new COVID variants.

China has rejected criticism of its COVID data and said any new mutations may be more infectious but less harmful.

“According to the political logic of some people in Europe and the United States, whether China opens or does not open is equally the wrong thing to do,” state-run CCTV said in a commentary late on Monday.

ECONOMIC CONCERNS

As Chinese workers and shoppers are falling ill, concerns mount about growth prospects in the world’s second-largest economy, weighing on Asian stocks.

Data on Tuesday showed China’s factory activity shrank at a sharper pace in December as the COVID wave disrupted production and hurt demand.

December shipments from Foxconn’s (2317.TW) Zhengzhou iPhone plant, disrupted late last year by a COVID outbreak that prompted worker departures and unrest, were 90% of the firm’s initial plans, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

A “bushfire” of infections in China in coming months is likely to hurt its economy this year and drag on global growth, said the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva.

“China is entering the most dangerous weeks of the pandemic,” warned analysts at Capital Economics.

“The authorities are making almost no efforts now to slow the spread of infections and, with the migration ahead of Lunar New Year getting started, any parts of the country not currently in a major COVID wave will be soon.”

Mobility data suggested that economic activity was depressed nationwide and would likely remain so until the infection wave began to subside, they added.

China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism said the domestic tourism market saw 52.71 million trips during the New Year holiday, flat year-on-year and only 43% of the 2019 levels, before the pandemic.

The revenue generated was over 26.52 billion yuan ($3.84 billion), up 4% year-on-year but only about 35% of the revenue created in 2019, the ministry said.

Expectations are higher for China’s biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year, later this month, when some experts expect daily COVID cases to have already peaked in many parts of the country. Some hotels in the southern tourist resort of Sanya are fully booked for the period, Chinese media reported.

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

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Chinese state media seek to reassure public over COVID

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WUHAN, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Thousands of Chinese took to the streets to mark the New Year as authorities and state media sought to reassure the public that the COVID-19 outbreak sweeping across the country was under control and nearing its peak.

Though many people in major cities have continued to isolate as the virus spreads through the population, New Year revelries appeared to be mostly unaffected as people celebrated the end of 2022 and the turn into 2023.

In Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first identified at the end of 2019, residents said anxieties about the impact of easing strict zero-COVID restrictions to live with the disease had now abated – at least for the young and healthy.

“Basically, now my friends and I feel relatively positive and optimistic,” said a 29-year old tutor surnamed Wu. “Many people are going out and about.”

“We all know that especially for the middle-aged and the elderly, especially those over 60 years old, especially those with underlying diseases, they will be affected by this virus,” he said.

A long line of people queued at the emergency department of Wuhan’s Tongji Hospital, a major facility for COVID-19 patients, such as 72-year-old resident Huang, who wanted to be identified by her surname only.

“I don’t feel well. I have no energy. I can’t breathe. I used to be in good health. I had X-rays to check my lungs… This hospital is a lot of trouble, you have to wait a long time,” she said.

DATA UNDER SCRUTINY

China’s abrupt U-turn on COVID controls – as well as the accuracy of its case and mortality data – have come under increasing scrutiny both at home and overseas.

The surge in cases has raised fresh worries about the health of the economy and in his first public comments since the change in policy, President Xi Jinping called in a New Year’s address for more effort and unity as China enters a “new phase”.

China reported one new COVID-19 death in the mainland for Dec. 31, the same as a day earlier, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday.

The accumulated official death toll in China now stands at 5,249, far lower than in other large countries. The government has rejected claims that it has deliberately underreported the total number of fatalities.

At the Hankou funeral home on the outskirts of Wuhan, an intermittent stream of mourners and hearse drivers were arriving on Sunday.

Staff at the site’s heavily guarded entrance declined to answer questions about their recent workloads. But funeral homes in other cities in China – including Chengdu and Beijing – said that they were busier than ever since China abruptly ditched its COVID curbs last month.

China’s CDC reported 5,138 official confirmed cases on Saturday, but with mass testing no longer in operation, experts say the actual number of infections is significantly higher.

State media in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China said on Sunday that daily cases peaked at around 60,000 recently, and now stand at around 19,000.

Authorities have been trying to reassure the public that they have the situation under control and state news agency Xinhua published an editorial on Sunday saying that the current strategy was “a planned, science-based approach” reflecting the changing nature of the virus.

REASSURANCE

Xinhua said separately the manufacturing of medicines had accelerated in the last month, with production of pain relievers ibuprofen and paracetamol now at 190 million tablets per day, five times higher than in early December.

Antigen test kit production has nearly doubled to 110 million per day in a month, it said.

On Sunday, Australia and Canada joined the United States and others in requiring travellers from China to provide negative COVID-19 tests when they arrive. Morocco will impose a ban on people arriving from China, its foreign ministry said.

Australian Health Minister Mark Butler said additional measures would also be considered amid concerns that China is not disclosing enough information about the nature and extent of the current outbreak.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen offered on Sunday to provide China with “necessary assistance” to help it deal with the surge in COVID-19 cases.

Reporting by Martin Quin Pollard in Wuhan and David Stanway in Shanghai; Editing by Neil Fullick

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Xi says COVID control is entering new phase as cases surge after reopening

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  • China overcame unprecedented difficulties in COVID battle: Xi
  • Still a time of struggle for controlling COVID: Xi
  • In Wuhan, surge in new cases shows signs of easing
  • Shanghai has 10 million infections, health official says
  • End of zero-COVID curbs prompts global concern

WUHAN/BEIJING, Dec 31 (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Saturday for more effort and unity as the country enters a “new phase” in its approach to combating the pandemic, in his first comments to the public on COVID-19 since his government changed course three weeks ago and relaxed its rigorous policy of lockdowns and mass testing.

China’s abrupt switch earlier this month from the “zero-COVID” policy that it had maintained for nearly three years has led to infections sweeping across the country unchecked. It has also caused a further drop in economic activity and international concern, with Britain and France becoming the latest countries to impose curbs on travellers from China.

The switch by China followed unprecedented protests over the policy championed by Xi, marking the strongest show of public defiance in his decade-old presidency and coinciding with grim growth figures for the country’s $17 trillion economy.

In a televised speech to mark the New Year, Xi said China had overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges in the battle against COVID, and that its policies were “optimised” when the situation and time so required.

“Since the outbreak of the epidemic … the majority of cadres and masses, especially medical personnel, grassroots workers braved hardships and courageously persevered,” Xi said.

“At present, the epidemic prevention and control is entering a new phase, it is still a time of struggle, everyone is persevering and working hard, and the dawn is ahead. Let’s work harder, persistence means victory, and unity means victory.”

New Year’s Eve prompted reflection online and by residents of Wuhan, the epicentre of the COVID outbreak nearly three years ago, about the zero-COVID policy and the impact of its reversal.

People in the central city of Wuhan expressed hope that normal life would return in 2023 despite a surge in cases since pandemic curbs were lifted.

Wuhan resident Chen Mei, 45, said she hoped her teenage daughter would see no further disruptions to her schooling.

“When she can’t go to the school and can only have classes online it’s definitely not an effective way of learning,” she said.

VIDEO REMOVED

Across the country, many people voiced similar hopes on social media, while others were critical.

Thousands of users on China’s Twitter-like Weibo criticised the removal of a video made by local outlet Netease News that collated real-life stories from 2022 that had captivated the Chinese public.

Many of the stories included in the video, which by Saturday could not be seen or shared on domestic social media platforms, highlighted the difficulties ordinary Chinese faced as a result of the previously strict COVID policy.

Weibo and Netease did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

One Weibo hashtag about the video garnered almost 4 million hits before it disappeared from platforms at about noon on Saturday. Social media users created new hashtags to keep the comments pouring in.

“What a perverse world, you can only sing the praises of the fake but you cannot show real life,” one user wrote, attaching a screenshot of a blank page that is displayed when searching for the hashtags.

The disappearance of the videos and hashtags, seen by many as an act of censorship, suggests the Chinese government still sees the narrative surrounding its handling of the disease as a politically sensitive issue.

HOSPITALS OVERWHELMED

The wave of new infections has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes across the country, with lines of hearses outside crematoriums fuelling public concern.

China, a country of 1.4 billion people, reported one new COVID death for Friday, the same as the day before – numbers that do not match the experience of other countries after they reopened.

UK-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday that about 9,000 people in China were probably dying each day from COVID. Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1 have likely reached 100,000, with infections totalling 18.6 million, it said.

Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, told the People’s Daily in an interview published on Saturday that Shanghai had reached a peak of infections on Dec. 22, saying there were currently about 10 million cases.

He said those numbers indicated that some 50,000 people in the city of 25 million would need to be hospitalized in the next few weeks.

At the central hospital of Wuhan, where former COVID whistleblower Li Wenliang worked and later died of the virus in early 2020, patient numbers were down on Saturday compared with the rush of the past few weeks, a worker outside the hospital’s fever clinic told Reuters.

“This wave is almost over,” said the worker, who was wearing a hazmat suit.

A pharmacist whose store is next to the hospital said most people in the city had now been infected and recovered.

“It is mainly old people who are getting sick with it now,” he said.

In the first indication of the toll on China’s giant manufacturing sector from the change in COVID policy, data on Saturday showed factory activity shrank for the third straight month in December and at the sharpest pace in nearly three years.

Reporting by Martin Quinn Pollard, Tingshu Wang and Xiaoyu Yin in Wuhan, Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee
Editing by Helen Popper and Frances Kerry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Factbox: Spain, Malaysia add to restrictions on travellers from China

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Dec 30 (Reuters) – Authorities around the world are imposing or considering curbs on travellers from China as COVID-19 case there surge following its relaxation of “zero-COVID” rules.

They cite a lack of information from China on variants and are concerned about a wave of infections. China has rejected criticism of its COVID data and said it expects future mutations to be potentially more transmissible but less severe.

Below is a list of regulations for travellers from China.

PLACES IMPOSING CURBS

UNITED STATES

The United States will impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China beginning on Jan. 5. All air passengers aged two and older will require a negative result from a test no more than two days before departure from China, Hong Kong or Macau. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said U.S. citizens should also reconsider travel to China, Hong Kong and Macau.

INDIA

The country has mandated a COVID-19 negative test report for travellers arriving from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Thailand, the health minister said. Passengers from those countries will be quarantined if they show symptoms or test positive.

JAPAN

Japan will require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travellers from mainland China. Those who test positive will be required to quarantine for seven days. New border measures for China will go into effect at midnight on Dec. 30. The government will also limit requests from airlines to increase flights to China.

ITALY

Italy has ordered COVID-19 antigen swabs and virus sequencing for all travellers from China. Milan’s main airport, Malpensa, had already started testing passengers arriving from Beijing and Shanghai. “The measure is essential to ensure surveillance and detection of possible variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population,” Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said.

SPAIN

Spain will require a negative COVID-19 test or a full course of vaccination against the disease upon arrival for travellers from China, the country’s Health Minister Carolina Darias said.

MALAYSIA

Malaysia will screen all inbound travellers for fever and test wastewater from aircraft arriving from China for COVID-19, Minister Zaliha Mustafa said in a statement.

TAIWAN

Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre said all passengers on direct flights from China, as well as by boat at two offshore islands, will have to take PCR tests upon arrival, starting on Jan. 1.

SOUTH KOREA

South Korea will require travellers from China to provide negative COVID test results before departure, South Korea’s News1 news agency reported on Friday, after Beijing’s decision to lift stringent zero-COVID policies.

PLACES MONITORING SITUATION

AUSTRALIA

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia was monitoring the situation in respect of China “as we continue to monitor the impact of COVID here in Australia as well as around the world.”

PHILIPPINES

The Southeast Asian country is being “very cautious” and could impose measures such as testing requirements on visitors from China, but not an outright ban, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said.

BRITAIN

Britain is reviewing whether to impose restrictions on people arriving from China, but has no plans to do so, officials said.

Defence minister Ben Wallace said an update was possible in the coming days, but another minister said that a review of evidence so far did not suggest any concerning new variant that would lead the government to impose restrictions.

Compiled by Bernard Orr; Editing by Gerry Doyle, John Stonestreet and Barbara Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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COVID travel curbs against Chinese visitors ‘discriminatory’ -state media

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  • U.S., Japan, others require COVID tests from Chinese visitors
  • China state media calls COVID travel curbs “discriminatory”
  • China’s factory activity likely cooled in December -poll

BEIJING, Dec 30 (Reuters) – Chinese state-media said COVID-19 testing requirements imposed around the world in response to a surging wave of infections were “discriminatory”, in the clearest pushback yet against restrictions that are slowing down its re-opening.

Having kept its borders all but shut for three years, imposing a strict regime of lockdowns and relentless testing, China abruptly reversed course toward living with the virus on Dec. 7, and a wave of infections erupted across the country.

Some places have been taken aback by the scale of China’s outbreak and expressed scepticism over Beijing’s COVID statistics, with the United States, South Korea, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan imposing COVID tests for travellers from China.

Malaysia said it would screen all international arrivals for fever.

“The real intention is to sabotage China’s three years of COVID-19 control efforts and attack the country’s system,” state-run tabloid Global Times said in an article late on Thursday, calling the restrictions “unfounded” and “discriminatory.”

China will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine from Jan. 8. But it will still demand a negative PCR test result within 48 hours before departure.

Italy on Thursday urged the rest of the European Union to follow its lead, but France, Germany and Portugal have said they saw no need for new restrictions, while Austria has stressed the economic benefits of Chinese tourists’ return to Europe.

Global spending by Chinese visitors was worth more than $250 billion a year before the pandemic.

The United States have raised concerns about potential mutations of the virus as it sweeps through the world’s most populous country, as well as over China’s data transparency.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention is considering sampling wastewater from international aircraft to track any emerging new variants, the agency told Reuters.

China, a country of 1.4 billion people, reported one new COVID death for Thursday, same as the day before – numbers which do not match the experience of other countries after they re-opened.

China’s official death toll of 5,247 since the pandemic began compares with more than 1 million deaths in the United States. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, a city of 7.4 million, has reported more than 11,000 deaths.

UK-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday around 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID. Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1 have likely reached 100,000, with infections totalling 18.6 million, it said.

‘EXCESS MORTALITY’

China’s chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said on Thursday that a team at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention will measure the difference between the number of deaths in the current wave of infections and the number of deaths expected had the epidemic never happened. By calculating the “excess mortality”, China will be able to work out what could have been potentially underestimated, Wu said.

China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.

The relatively low death count is also inconsistent with the surging demand reported by funeral parlours in several Chinese cities.

The lifting of restrictions, after widespread protests against them in November, has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes across the country, with scenes of people on intravenous drips by the roadside and lines of hearses outside crematoria fuelling public concern.

Health experts say China has been caught ill-prepared by the U-turn in policies long championed by President Xi Jinping.

In December, tenders put out by hospitals for key equipment such as ventilators and patient monitors were two to three times higher than in previous months, according to a Reuters review，suggesting hospitals were scrambling to plug shortages.

Experts say the elderly in rural areas may be particularly vulnerable because of inadequate medical resources. Next month’s Lunar New Year festival, when hundreds of millions travel to their hometowns, will add to the risk.

ECONOMIC WOES

The world’s second-largest economy is expected to slow down further in the near term as factory workers and shoppers fall ill. Some economists predict a strong bounce back from a low base next year, but concerns linger that some of the damage made by three years of restrictions could be long-term.

Consumers may need time to recover their confidence and spending appetite after losing income during lockdowns, while the private sector may have used its expansion funds to cover losses incurred due to the restrictions.

Heavily indebted China will also face slowing demand in its main export markets, while its massive property sector is licking its wounds after a series of defaults.

China’s factory activity most likely cooled in December as rising infections began to affect production lines, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.

Chinese airlines, however, look set to be the early winners of the re-opening.

Writing by Marius Zaharia. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Hong Kong asks Japan to drop airport bans, 60,000 travellers affected

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HONG KONG, Dec 29 (Reuters) – Hong Kong has asked Japan to withdraw a COVID-19 restriction that allows passenger flights from the financial hub to land only at four designated airports, saying the decision would affect about 60,000 passengers.

India, Italy, Taiwan and the United States require mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China after Beijing’s decision last month to lift stringent zero-COVID policies that fuelled a surge in infections across mainland China.

Hong Kong, home to more than 7 million people, is recording around 20,000 coronavirus cases a day but lifted its COVID curbs on Thursday for the first time in three years.

Japan, a top travel destination for those in Hong Kong, said it would limit flights from Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China to Tokyo’s two airports, as well as Osaka and Nagoya, from Friday.

The decision comes during a peak travel season ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday which begins on Jan. 21.

“It is understood that around 250 outbound flights of Hong Kong airlines will be affected between December 30, 2022 and the end of January 2023, affecting around 60,000 passengers,” the government said in a statement late on Wednesday.

City leader John Lee said the government had indicated to Japan that it was disappointed.

“We think that Hong Kong people should be allowed to use not just these four airports,” Lee said.

On Thursday, Hong Kong’s government said Japan would let passenger flights from Hong Kong also land in Hokkaido, Fukuoka and Okinawa provided that no passengers aboard had been in mainland China for the prior seven days, but said the condition was “unreasonable”.

Flights of Hong Kong airlines can still carry passengers back to Hong Kong from airports in Japan, the government said, to ensure their smooth return and “minimise the impact to Hong Kong travellers caused by the incident.”

In a statement, Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways (0293.HK) said it would continue to operate flights to Japan, although it would reduce these to 65 a week, down 20% from its planned schedule for Jan 2023.

HK Express, which is owned by Cathay, said in a separate statement it would only be able to operate 60 scheduled flights a week to destinations in Japan due to the curbs, prompting the cancellation of 41 flights from Hong Kong to Japan in January.

Hong Kong Airlines and Peach Aviation said they would cancel some flight routes because of the rules.

In December, China began dismantling the world’s strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, putting its battered economy on course for a complete re-opening next year.

The lifting of curbs following widespread protests has meant that COVID is spreading largely unchecked, probably infecting millions of people each day, some international health experts have said.

Reporting by Farah Master and Twinnie Siu; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Stephen Coates

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China’s vast countryside in rush to bolster COVID defences

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  • Hospitals, funeral parlours overwhelmed by COVID wave
  • Some countries impose testing rules on Chinese travellers
  • China reports one new COVID death for Dec. 28

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, Dec 29 (Reuters) – China’s sprawling and thinly resourced countryside is racing to beef up medical facilities before hundreds of millions of factory workers return to their families for the Lunar New Year holiday next month from cities where COVID-19 is surging.

Having imposed the world’s strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and relentless testing for three years, China reversed course this month towards living with the virus, leaving its fragile health system overwhelmed.

The lifting of restrictions, following widespread protests against them, means COVID is spreading largely unchecked and likely infecting millions of people a day, according to some international health experts.

China officially reported one new COVID death for Wednesday, down from three on Tuesday, but foreign governments and many epidemiologists believe the numbers are much higher, and that more than 1 million people may die next year.

China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.

In the southwestern city of Chengdu, funeral parlours were busy after dark on Wednesday, with a steady stream of cars entering one, which was heavily guarded by security personnel.

One van driver working for the parlour said the past few weeks have been particularly busy and that “huge numbers of people” were inside.

Hospitals and funeral homes in major cities have been under intense pressure, but the main concern over the health system’s ability to cope with surging infections is focused on the countryside.

At a Shanghai pharmacy, Wang Kaiyun, 53, a cleaner in the city who comes from the neighbouring Anhui province, said she was buying medicines for her family back home.

“My husband, my son, my grandson, my mother, they are all infected,” she said. “They can’t get any medicine, nothing for fever or cough.”

Each year, hundreds of millions of people, mostly working in factories near the southern and eastern coasts, return to the countryside for the Lunar New Year, due to start on Jan. 22.

The holiday travel rush is expected to last for 40 days, from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15, authorities said.

The state-run China Daily reported on Thursday that rural regions across China were beefing up their medical treatment capacities.

It said a hospital in a rural part of Inner Mongolia where more than 100,000 people live was seeking bidders for a 1.9 million yuan ($272,308) contract to upgrade its wards into intensive care units.

Liancheng County Central Hospital in the eastern Fujian province was seeking tenders for ambulances and medical devices, ranging from breathing machines to electrocardiogram monitors.

In December, tenders put out by hospitals for key medical equipment were two-to-three times higher than in previous months, according to a Reuters review，suggesting hospitals across the country were scrambling to plug shortages.

TESTING REQUIREMENTS

The world’s second-largest economy is expected to suffer a slowdown in factory output and domestic consumption in the near term as workers and shoppers fall ill.

The contact-intensive services sector, which accounts for roughly half of China’s economic output, was hammered by the country’s anti-virus curbs, which shut down many restaurants and restricted travel. As China re-opens, many businesses in the services industry have no money to expand.

The re-opening also raises the prospect of Chinese tourists returning to shopping streets around the world, once a market worth $255 billion a year globally. But some countries have been taken aback by the scale of the outbreak and are sceptical of Beijing’s COVID statistics.

China’s official death toll of 5,246 since the pandemic began compares with more than 1 million deaths in the United States. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong has reported more than 11,000 deaths.

The United States, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan said they would require COVID tests for travellers from China. Britain was considering a similar move, the Telegraph reported.

The United States issued a travel alert on Wednesday advising Americans to “reconsider travel to China, Hong Kong, and Macau” and citing “reports that the healthcare system is overwhelmed” along with the risk of new variants.

The main airport in the Italian city of Milan started testing passengers arriving from Beijing and Shanghai on Dec. 26 and found that almost half of them were infected.

China has rejected criticism of its statistics as groundless and politically motivated attempts to smear its policies. It has also played down the risk of new variants, saying it expects mutations to be more virulent but less severe.

Omicron was still the dominant strain in China, Chinese health officials said this week.

Australia, Germany, Thailand and others said they would not impose additional restrictions on travel for now.

For its part, China, whose borders have been all but shut to foreigners since early 2020, will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine from Jan. 8.

($1 = 6.9774 yuan)

Additional reporting by Martin Quin Pollard in Chengdu; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel

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Hong Kong scraps most COVID rules, though masks still mandated

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HONG KONG, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Hong Kong will cancel its stringent COVID-19 rules from Thursday, city leader John Lee said, meaning that arrivals will no longer need to do mandatory PCR tests while the city’s vaccine pass would also be scrapped.

All measures would be cancelled on Thursday, apart from the wearing of masks which still remains compulsory, Lee told a media briefing on Wednesday.

“The city has reached a relatively high vaccination rate which builds an anti-epidemic barrier,” Lee said.

“Hong Kong has a sufficient amount of medicine to fight COVID, and healthcare workers have gained rich experience in facing the pandemic,” he added.

Lee said his government is aiming to reopen the borders with mainland China by Jan. 15 and was working with authorities over the border to ensure an orderly re-opening.

He said the authorities have been preparing for the scrapping of all restrictions.

“The time is appropriate for us to do this, having prepared for six months to do this,” said Lee. “The whole society is preparing for this. We are doing all this according to our local epidemic situation.”

Hong Kong’s vaccine pass requirement, which was imposed in February and was a must for people to access most venues in Hong Kong, will end from Thursday. Social distancing rules such as a cap on gatherings of more than 12 people in public will also be scrapped from Thursday.

The city has for nearly three years largely followed China’s lead in tackling the novel coronavirus, with both places being the last strongholds in adopting a zero-COVID policy.

The removal of the curbs are likely to result in an increase of travellers to the former British colony who have previously shunned it due to strict restrictions.

In an abrupt change of policy, China this month began dismantling the world’s strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing. The country will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine from Jan. 8, authorities said this week.

Restrictions on travel between Hong Kong and the mainland were imposed in early 2020. The reopening was postponed several times due to outbreaks in Hong Kong or the mainland.

International passengers arriving in Hong Kong since mid-month are no longer subject to COVID-related movement controls or barred from certain venues, the government announced in December.

Business groups, diplomats and many residents had slammed Hong Kong’s COVID-19 rules, saying they threatened its competitiveness and standing as an international financial centre.

The rules have weighed on Hong Kong’s economy since early 2020, speeding up an exodus of businesses, expatriates and local families that have left amid a drive by Beijing to more closely control the former British colony.

Additional reporting by Jessie Pang and Angel Woo; Editing by Tom Hogue, Lincoln Feast and Muralikumar Anantharaman

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