Health sources in India revealed - today, Thursday - that 11 new variants of the Corona virus had been monitored in the country, while China called on the World Health Organization to adopt a "neutral" position on the outbreak of Covid-19, after the organization criticized the outcome of the epidemic provided by Beijing.

Indian health sources said that the new variants of the Corona virus arrived through 124 travelers who came from different countries.

And the “Times of India” website quoted unnamed sources as saying that the cases that were confirmed to be infected with corona mutants arrived in India between December 24 and January 3.

The authorities indicated that about 19,227 passengers underwent Corona test tests, and 124 of them were confirmed to be infected with the virus.

The Indian statements come amid international concern over the increasing spread of coronavirus cases in China.

Since the end of last December, media reports revealed an excessive increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus in China, prompting the World Health Organization to declare its concern and to ask the Chinese authorities to reveal the actual numbers of people infected with corona.

An emergency room full of patients in a hospital in Shanghai (Reuters)

neutral position

For its part, China called - today, Thursday - the World Health Organization to adopt a "neutral" position regarding the outbreak of Covid-19, after the organization criticized the outcome of the epidemic provided by Beijing.

"We hope the WHO will maintain a science-based, objective and impartial stance, and play an active role in the global response to the challenges of the epidemic," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters.

Mao stressed that China shares "appropriate information and data" on the COVID-19 epidemic, stressing the "close cooperation" between China and the World Health Organization.

Since the start of the pandemic, China has opposed everything it sees as politicizing the health crisis.

And China had suddenly lifted, in early December, most of its measures to combat the outbreak of Covid-19, which had provided extensive protection for its population since the spread of the virus in 2020.

However, since the lifting of the measures, China is facing the worst surge of Covid-19 infections on its soil, which has put great pressure on hospitals and crematoriums, yet the authorities announce only a very limited number of deaths related to Covid-19 after a change in the methodology for calculating the victims, which is What sparked controversy.

According to the new methodology, only people who die directly from respiratory failure related to Covid-19 are counted among Corona deaths, and this change in the methodology used means that many deaths are no longer counted as being caused by Covid-19.


Open borders with Hong Kong

In another context, China announced today, Thursday, the reopening of its borders with Hong Kong, starting next Sunday, and allowing travel between them, after a closure that lasted for nearly 3 years, in an attempt to ease the restrictions that were imposed to curb the Covid-19 pandemic.

Today, Thursday, China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office announced that travel "will resume gradually and orderly" starting next Sunday, the day China will lift the mandatory quarantine measure for arrivals from abroad.

All 12 crossings between the two sides were closed, except for 3, about 3 years ago, with China adopting the “zero Covid” strategy, in the context of which restrictions were imposed, which are among the most severe in the world to contain the spread of the epidemic.

Like China, Hong Kong imposed policies to curb the spread of the epidemic with strict restrictions, such as mandatory quarantine, which affected the numbers of arrivals to and from it.

These restrictions and measures caused the separation of families, damage to the tourism sector, and disruption of business trips. Hong Kong suffered in particular, as it ended the year 2022 with a deep economic recession.