British health experts estimate that in China, around 9.000 people die every day from the new variant of the covid-19 virus, the Guardian reported.
On the other hand, the United States is considering sampling and testing for covid sewage taken from international planes to monitor any emerging new variants as infections in China rise, he added. The Guardian.
At the same time, as Reuters reports, Spain will require people traveling from China to that country to have a negative test for covid-19 or proof that they have been fully vaccinated against the disease.
This was stated by the Minister of Health of Spain, Carolina Darias, and a number of other countries also announced the same.
U.S. infectious disease experts say proposed wastewater testing by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would provide a better solution to tracking the virus and slowing its entry into the U.S. than new travel restrictions announced this week.
Their comments came after British health data company Airfinity reported that around 9.000 people in China were likely to die each day from the virus, nearly doubling the estimate from Sunday.
Covid infections began spreading across China in November, accelerating this month after Beijing lifted its zero-covid policy, including regular PCR testing of its population and the release of data on asymptomatic cases.
The cumulative death toll in China since Dec. 1 has likely reached 100.000, with a total of 18,6 million infected, Airfinity said. According to the Guardian, it used modeling based on data from Chinese provinces before recent changes to case reporting were implemented.
Airfinity expects the Covid infection in China to reach its first peak on January 13 with 3,7 million cases per day.
Their figures contrasted with several thousand cases reported daily by Chinese health authorities.
The peak of deaths is expected on January 23, with around 25.000 per day. Since December 7, when China made an abrupt policy shift, authorities have officially reported only 10 deaths from Covid.
The European Union's health agency said it believed the introduction of mandatory EU-wide Covid screening for travelers from China was currently "unjustified", pointing to "higher population immunity".
But in a series of tweets, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, renewed his appeal to China to be more forthcoming with detailed information about the country's pandemic situation.
"In the absence of comprehensive information from China, it is understandable that countries around the world are behaving in ways they believe can protect their populations," Gebrejesus wrote.
China has called criticism of its Covid statistics unfounded and played down the risk of new variants, saying it expected the mutations to be more contagious but less serious.
However, doubts about the official Chinese data have been raised by many countries, including Italy and Japan, as well as the US.
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