WHO: China is underrepresenting severity of COVID-19 outbreak

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- The World Health Organization is calling on China to be more transparent concerning the severity of its COVID-19 outbreak, stating the Asian nation has been underrepresenting its number of hospitalizations and deaths.

The U.N. health body has been meeting its Chinese counterparts to discuss its spiking COVID-19 infections and deaths to better understand what's driving the outbreak, and were to meet again Thursday along with other member states to discuss the overall COVID-19 situation.

However, while the WHO appreciates the dialogue, it does not have complete data from China, it said.

"We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more compressive, real-time sequencing," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters during a press briefing in Geneva.

"WHO is concerned about the risk to life in China and has reiterated the importance of vaccination, including booster doses, to protect against hospitalization, severe disease and death."

The call comes as China is battling a surge in infections and deaths, with more than 250 million cases recorded in the first 20 days of last month.

The growing outbreak has prompted countries to re-impose entry restrictions on travelers from the Asian nation, which Beijing balked at on Tuesday, calling the moves politically motivated.

On Wednesday, Tedros retorted that the reaction by the international community is "understandable" given the high circulation rate of the virus in China and that it hasn't been forthcoming with comprehensive data.

Mike Ryan, WHO's emergencies director, told reporters Wednesday that there have been issues with how China reports its COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, specifically that it is using a narrow definition.

While the WHO defines a COVID-19 death as one resulting "from a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case," China recently adopted the definition for a COVID-19 death to involve respiratory failure.

"We believe that definition is too narrow," he said. "We believe the current numbers being published from China under-represent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions and particularly in terms of death."

He continued that the lack of information makes it difficult to understand the the evolution of the disease and its impact.

"It is also very important -- and this is a general message to the world, but a specific message for China as well -- that we do not discourage doctors and nurses reporting these deaths or these cases," he said. "We have an open approach to be able to record the impact of the disease in society."

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's COVID-19 technical lead, explained that it is not simply a matter of knowing what variants are circulating in China, but that the global community needs to be able to assess its information and to look at mutations to determine if there are new variants in the Asian nation, but also around the world.

"There is a lot more work to be done," she said. "A lot more data which needs to be shared from China. In addition around the world so we can track this pandemic as we enter this fourth year of this pandemic."