China will only release data on symptomatic COVID infections, the country announced Wednesday as it struggles to keep the virus at bay after relaxing its so-called zero-COVID restrictions.
With mandatory testing dropped, officials can no longer accurately gauge the number of people with asymptomatic infections, its National Health Commission said in a Wednesday statement, Bloomberg reported.
China reached its second-highest peak of recorded COVID cases late last montha seven-day average of nearly 50,000 on Nov. 29, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys Coronavirus Resource Center. It reported just 20,957 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours, likely as a result of its change in reporting.
Cases had been surging before China relaxed measures, likely due partly to widespread COVID policy protests that may have served as super spreader events.
Mike Ryan, the World Health Organizations director of emergencies, said Wednesday that Chinas easing of lockdowns isnt responsible for its current surge.
Theres a narrative at the moment that China lifted the restrictions and all of a sudden, the disease is out of control, he said at a press conference in Geneva, multiple news outlets reported.
The disease was spreading intensively because, I believe, the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease. And I believe China decided strategically that was not the best option anymore.
Experts have urged China to let outside experts like those with the WHO advise its transition, as well as to allow in better vaccines like those from Pfizer and Moderna. In a sign of progress, Maria Van Kerkhove, a technical lead for the WHOs COVID-19, said Wednesday that the agency was providing advice to the country regarding the relaxing of restrictions, Reuters reported Wednesday.
And earlier this week, Chinas Meheco Group said it had struck a deal with Pfizer to import its COVID-19 vaccine, Reuters reported. China has domestically developed vaccines, but data on their effectiveness is lacking. The same company will also soon sell Pfizers anti-COVID drug Paxlovid in China, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Because China lacks population immunity due to a widespread lack of exposure, sub-par vaccines, and low vaccination rates among the elderly, the virus will likely rip through the country, causing hundreds of millions of infections, Dr. Ali Mokdad, a professor at the University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, recently told Fortune.
If you look at the numbers, only about 25% of those in China have immunity against Omicron, he told Fortune earlier this month, before the countrys reopening. If they open up, 75% of the population is going to get infected. They cannot handle the explosion in infections and hospitalizations.
This will spread like wildfire.
Earlier this month Ryan said he hoped the Chinese would find a new approach to battling COVID that balances the control of the virus with the lives, livelihoods, and wellbeing of the people of China, he said.
When you cant stop a fire, you get people in danger out of the way, he told Fortune. And in this case, we do that with the vaccine.
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