China urges people for ‘final victory’ against COVID as global concerns grow

China’s pivot last month to its tighter anti-virus controls has spread COVID to a population of 1.4 billion, which has little natural immunity to the virus since it emerged in its Wuhan city three years ago.

Funeral homes have reported an increase in demand for their services and international health experts predict at least one million deaths in China this year.

But officially, China has reported a smaller number of Covid deaths since the policy U-turn and eased concerns about a disease that had previously been contained even after the rest of the world opened up. It was painful to wade through the massive lockdown.

“China and the Chinese people will surely win the final victory against the epidemic,” the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, said in an editorial.

As it now lifts those restrictions, China is particularly critical of decisions by some countries to impose a COVID test requirement on their citizens, saying they are unreasonable and lack scientific basis.

Health officials from the 27-member European Union are due to meet on Wednesday over a coordinated response to deal with the implications of increased travel from China.

Most EU countries are in favor of pre-departure COVID testing for travelers from China, the European Commission said on Tuesday, following similar measures imposed by the United States, Britain, South Korea and others.

China, which has largely shut off from the world since the pandemic began in late 2019, will stop requiring incoming travelers to quarantine from January 8. But it would still demand that incoming travelers be tested before they can begin their journey.

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

The UN agency had invited scientists to submit detailed data on viral sequencing and share data on hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations.

The WHO will communicate later, probably at Wednesday’s news briefing, its spokesman said after the meeting. The spokesperson previously said the agency expected “detailed discussions” about the variants circulating in China and globally.

Last month, Reuters reported that the WHO had not received data from China about new COVID hospitalizations since Beijing’s policy change, prompting some health experts to question whether This may hide information about the extent of its outbreak.

China reported five new COVID-19 deaths on January 3, compared with three a day earlier, taking the official death toll to 5,258, a low by global standards.

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

travel interest

State media reported that despite some countries banning Chinese visitors, there is growing interest in outbound travel from the world’s most populous country.

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

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The number of international flights to and from China is still a fraction of pre-COVID levels. The government has said that 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, accounting for nearly a third of its total visitors.

But there are signs that an increase in travel from China could be spreading the virus overseas.

Health officials in South Korea, which began testing travelers from China for COVID on Monday, said more than a fifth of the 2,189 arrivals had tested positive.