China Updates WHO on Nearly 60,000 Covid-19 Death Toll

According to CGTN channel, the Minister of the National Health Commission Ma Xiaowei on Saturday detailed about China´s health situation by a phone talk with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Aside from debating on applicable sanitation measures to prevent and control the disease nationwide, Xiaowei expressed China’s willingness to support the global crackdown on the pandemic and recalled China has always shared coronavirus-related information with the rest of the world.

Ghebreyesus, on the other hand, requested Beijing to continue providing updates on these elements, as WHO will now analyze those Dec. 8-Jan. 12 figures in order to better understand China´s epidemiological scenario.

Ghebreyesus called for statistics at the provincial level and to publish on open platforms such as Gisaid everything related to the sequence of coronavirus variants spreading nationwide, where local health authorities reported the outbreak of BA.5.2 and BF.7 omicron subvariants.

The WHO leader also reiterated the willingness to work with China, as well as the significance of cooperation and transparency to reach an understanding of the origin of the pandemic.

China has always assured it shares its health information on the global Gisaid platform with transparency and accountability, and is keeping the surge under control.

WHO required it to provide more detailed and accurate data about the epidemiological scenario and expressed deep concern about the limited criteria for classifying Covid-19 deaths.

On Saturday, the National Health Commission indicated that the last 59,938 Covid-19 deaths averaged 80 years of age, 5,503 of them died from respiratory issues and the rest from other conditions aggravated by SARS-CoV-2 infection.

This is the first time China has reported Covid-19 deaths after ceasing to publish them last December and amid adjustments to its health strategy.