Three years after the appearance of the first footprints of COVID-19, China continues to fight the plague. The Government will not have to lighten measures or isolate international passengers when they arrive in the country, all while the cases of the country rise. However, there is no concrete data because the Government has stopped publishing daily data and the World Health Organization has shown “concern” about the Government’s hiding of data. Meanwhile, international investment funds have seen the end of international travel cuts as good news, as the doors of the second largest global economy will be somewhat more open.

Although in the rest of the world it appears to be a pandemic issue last year, the first cases appeared in the country, one of the largest economic giants in the world, the virus continues to cause many headaches. Since the outbreak of the plague, the government launched a “CovidZero” policy with strict isolation and monitoring measures. Now, however, it has changed policies overnight without giving too many explanations: on 27 January the Government announced that international travellers will not have to be isolated from 8 January.

In addition, the Government stopped providing daily data since day 25. The fact that the reported death figures are much lower than those estimated by international health organizations explains that China has changed its way of counting deaths from COVID-19, only counts positive deaths with respiratory problems. Experts consider that this concealment of data represents a considerable increase in the number of deaths from contagion, something that has emerged from some hospitals in China, which consider ICUs to be “full”.

International “concern”

The new measures of the Chinese Government have not had a clear explanation, and that is what has generated concern at international level, but above all the lack of data is what has most doubts. In fact, not having a clear number of infected people means not knowing the true size of the virus. That is, they do not know exactly what the extension of the virus is, and given that the spread involves mutations, the situation is even more serious, because they do not know what the Chinese variant is, nor what the response these possible new variants may have to face vaccines.

Faced with this situation, the opening of the doors to the international world has led to fears that the lack of control of their situation may affect other countries. Japan and Malaysia, for example, have taken steps to prevent the increase in cases, requiring a negative test and an epidemiological follow-up certificate to the Chinese population. EE.UU. reports that travellers from China are being asked for such measures.