US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday (January 4) that he is concerned about the way China is currently handling COVID-19.

President Biden visited Kentucky on Wednesday to push for infrastructure projects. Asked by reporters if he was "concerned" about the way China is handling COVID-19, he replied: "Yes, I am concerned. But I think we just need to have the procedures we have in place, which is, if you fly from China Come on, you're going to get tested, etc. China doesn't have ... I know they're sensitive when we say they've been dishonest."

A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official said earlier in the day that China's COVID-19 data did not provide an accurate picture of the situation in the country and underreported hospitalizations and deaths from the disease.

Some countries, including the United States, have begun to impose anti-epidemic restrictions on air passengers from China, including requiring negative results of new coronavirus tests before departure. The United States announced at the end of December that these new measures would be implemented from January 5, and said that the relevant data from China were insufficient and lacked transparency.

The Chinese government suddenly lifted the epidemic prevention and control in early December after three years of strict "clearing" measures. The number of COVID-19 infections has surged rapidly, and hospitals and crematoria are overwhelmed. In this context, the Chinese government plans to relax travel restrictions on January 8. Meanwhile, the Chinese government, which has previously imposed travel restrictions, is now criticizing countries for unscientific and "politicized" measures.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a regular news conference Tuesday that the U.S. requirement for passengers from China to be tested before departure is "not only due to the COVID-19 epidemic in the PRC (People's Republic of China), also due to the lack of adequate transparency from the PRC. If the PRC wants to see countries repeal the requirements that have been put in place, one way to help achieve this is to increase transparency.”

"We've been calling for more transparency from the PRC on issues around COVID, including the context of COVID's origins, long before this COVID surge in the PRC," Price said at a news conference Tuesday. "I think if they It is deeply in the world's interest to do it, and it is also deeply in the PRC's interest."

"China has always shared information and data with the international community in a responsible manner," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a regular news conference on Wednesday.

She also hit back at Washington, saying: "We have noticed that some people in the United States have recently made a lot of comments on the optimization and adjustment of China's domestic epidemic prevention and control policies. If the Chinese government responds responsibly with an attitude of putting life first, the epidemic situation in the United States or around the world may not necessarily develop into what it is today."

U.S. State Department spokesperson Price later said again at a regular press conference on Wednesday that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended practices for travelers from China were not only due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in China, Also "due to failure to obtain sufficient and transparent epidemiological and viral genome sequence data from China."

Price also referred to discussions between WHO officials and Chinese officials on Tuesday. He said senior WHO officials had made an assessment of what they had "seen," or, more appropriately, "didn't see" from China. Price pointed to the statement by the WHO Director of Public Health Emergencies that China underestimated the number of hospitalized cases, intensive care cases, and deaths from COVID-19.

Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's health emergencies program, told the media on Wednesday: "We believe that the latest figures released by China have seriously underestimated the number of new crowns in terms of hospitalization rates, intensive care rates, and especially death figures. The real impact of viral disease."

Ryan emphasized that the WHO believes that the Chinese government's definition of death from a new coronavirus infection is "too narrow".


"We still don't have the complete data," he said