China COVID data shows no new variant but under-reports deaths, WHO says

Data from China shows that no new coronavirus variant has been found there, but also that the country under-represents how many people have died in a rapidly spreading COVID-19 outbreak, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Wednesday. Global unease has grown about the accuracy of China's reporting of an outbreak that has filled hospitals and overwhelmed some funeral homes since Beijing abruptly reversed its "zero COVID" policy. The UN agency was releasing data provided by the Chinese CDC, a day after WHO officials met Chinese scientists. China has been reporting daily COVID deaths in single figures. Mike Ryan, the WHO's emergencies director, told a media briefing that current numbers being published from China under-represent hospital admissions, intensive care unit patients and "particularly in terms of death." WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the U.N. agency was seeking more rapid and regular data from China on hospitalisations and deaths. "WHO is concerned about the risk to life in China and has reiterated the importance of vaccination, including booster doses to protect against hospitalisation, severe disease and death," he said. China's People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper, sought to rally worried citizens for what it called a "final victory" over COVID-19, rebutting criticism of its policy of strict isolation that triggered rare protests last year. Beijing's abrupt axing of those ultra-strict curbs last month has unleashed the virus on the nation's 1.4b people, who have little immunity after being shielded since it emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan three years ago.<br/>