China did not share crucial hospitalization data with WHO

China has not shared hospitalization data with the World Health Organization (WHO) for last two weeks as millions of people are getting infected daily in COVID tsunami which has swept entire country after authorities haphazardly abandoned its Zero-COVID controls earlier this month. WHO spokesperson told Prasar Bharati Beijing that the agency has not received China’s hospitalization data for last two weeks. This means that China did not report it after relaxing COVID control protocols after which cases surged unimaginably amid fears of virus mutation.  Amid doubts and questions over reliability of official data, China stopped publishing official data from Sunday. However, provincial officials have given numbers which point to explosive outbreaks and overstretched health care systems. In China's eastern Zhejiang province alone, the provincial government said it was experiencing about 1 million new daily cases. Officials In the eastern city of Qingdao, population 10 million, said on Friday that there were roughly half a million new cases each day, a number which is expected to rise sharply in the coming days, local news sites reported. The city of Dongguan in the southern province of Guangdong said Friday that 250,000 to 300,000 people were being infected on a daily basis.

 Meanwhile, China will scrap quarantine measures for overseas arrivals starting January 8, health authorities announced Monday, after nearly three years of strict pandemic border restrictions. Travellers would only need a PCR test taken 48 hours pre-flight to enter China. According to the national health quarantine law, infectious disease quarantine measures will no longer be taken against inbound travellers and goods, the National Health Commission (NHC) said. The measures will take effect from January 8, when Covid will be downgraded from the top tier of inefectious diseases, Class A, to a second tier Class B, the NHC said in a separate notice Monday.