The US State Department has called on China to be more transparent about the current outbreak of COVID-19 and the origins of the virus, responding to a Chinese official who called the travel restrictions “unacceptable” on Tuesday.
“If he [People’s Republic of China] wants to see countries remove various requirements that have been put in place, there is a way to help achieve that and that is with additional transparency.”
“Long before this surge of COVID in the PRC, we have consistently called for greater transparency from the PRC regarding COVID, including in the context of the origins of COVID,” Price added. “We think it’s in the world’s great interest, but it’s also in the PRC’s great interest that they do so as well.”
China relaxed its “zero-COVID” strategy last month amid nationwide protests and rising cases, but health officials around the world have expressed skepticism about official data coming out of the country.
Travelers walk in a terminal at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, on March 23, 2022.
(Reuters/Tingshu Wang)
Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who is part of a World Health Organization committee that met Chinese officials on Tuesday, told Reuters that the figures China has released “are not very credible.”
“We want to see a more realistic picture of what’s really going on,” Koopmans told the new outlet.
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At least a dozen countries, including the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, the UK and Italy, have placed restrictions on travel from China.
Masked travelers check their passports as they line up at the international flight check-in counter at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, Thursday, December 29, 2022.
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning criticized the restrictions on Tuesday, saying they lack “scientific basis.”
“We firmly reject the use of COVID measures for political purposes and we will take corresponding measures in response to various situations on the basis of the principle of reciprocity,” he told reporters.
