The World Health Organization (WHO) encouraged Beijing to be more open with real-time data amid a surge of cases there as France and Britain joined a growing list of countries requiring Covid tests of travellers from China on Friday.
In addition, it was announced that Spain, South Korea, and Israel would demand verification of a negative test result from travellers departing China.
China argued on Friday that it had been transparent in providing its Covid-19 statistics, even though its hospitals and mortuaries were overflowing and there was international alarm over the low official figures for infections and fatalities there.
Earlier this week, a top US health official claimed Beijing had decreased its testing and reporting of new cases and had only sent scant information to international databases on variants spreading in China.
A national disease control organization in China reported 5,500 new local cases and one death on Friday, but with the termination of mass testing and the tightening of the criteria of a Covid fatality, it is now thought that these figures do not accurately reflect reality.
To prevent the importation of novel viral varieties, Britain, France, Spain, South Korea, and Israel have joined Italy, Japan, India, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the United States in mandating negative Covid testing for all travellers from mainland China.
