CCP Contradicts Earlier Response to WHO in Latest Health Update

Patients line up for an emergency pre-check at the new pediatric building of Xinhua Hospital in Shanghai, China, on the night of Sept. 25, 2023. The emergency and night care outpatient hall is crowded with children and family members waiting for treatment. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Chinese health authorities have admitted that a new COVID-19 variant has been causing infections amid a fast-worsening pneumonia outbreak across China after telling the World Health Organization (WHO) in late November that there wasn’t any new pathogen spreading in the country.

The Chinese communist regime’s National Disease Control and Prevention Administration released a Q&A about the JN.1 variant of COVID-19 on Dec. 15. It said that since the local JN.1 variant was first discovered in November, and as of Dec. 10, authorities have detected seven local cases in China.

However, according to earlier reports by mainland Chinese media such as Economic Observer and The Paper, data from the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) National Biological Information Center showed that JN.1 variant infection cases were reported in Shanghai as early as Oct. 11.

The latest announcement by the CCP stands in contrast to what they told the WHO on Nov. 23 after the international agency officially requested data on China’s “undiagnosed pneumonia” outbreak especially among children, amid reports of “white lung” syndrome often seen in severe COVID-19 cases. CCP officials responded to the WHO’s request by saying that no “unusual or new pathogens” had been found across China’s various regions, including Beijing and Liaoning Province, and no abnormal clinical manifestations had been found either.

The wave of pneumonia started to be noticed spreading in China in September, spiked in mid-October, and further worsened in November, while continuing to sweep across the country. The CCP has attributed the outbreak to cross-infections of influenza, mycoplasma pneumonia, respiratory syncytial virus, rhinovirus, and other respiratory infections, while avoiding and downplaying COVID-19.

In November, several countries in Asia, Europe, and the United States reported that their number of pneumonia cases among children had spiked compared to October.

JN.1 Variant

JN.1 is the second-generation sub-branch of the COVID-19 Omicron BA.2.86 variant, and its believed to be more contagious.

Between Dec. 1 and Dec. 3, the CCP approved five new Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines for “emergency use”, one of them targeting the BA strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19, in addition to the XBB variants.

Dr. Dong Yuhong, a European virology and infectious disease expert and Epoch Times contributor, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 18 that mainland Chinese media said that JN.1 had already been reported in China in October, but the CCP later said it was first discovered in November. However, according to official data from Chinese authorities, there have only been seven cases in two months.

Meanwhile, undiagnosed pneumonia has been spreading across China for a few months, with overwhelming posts on social media reporting many people being infected. Their symptoms, China’s overcrowded hospitals, and waiting lines outside funeral homes are a repeat of the scenes seen during the massive COVID-19 outbreak in January this year after the CCP lifted its strict lockdown measures in December last year amid fears of mass protests and civil unrest.

The CCP has been accused by the international community of seriously underreporting COVID-19-related data and covering up the scale of the COVID-19 outbreak in China since the initial outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019. COVID-19 was originally called “Wuhan pneumonia” because of the disease’s origins and symptoms.

Dr. Dong believes that COVID is a large contributing factor to the wave of pneumonia impacting residents in China. However, she pointed out that in many hospitals, “when they see severe cases with ‘white lung’ syndrome, the doctors directly say that it is ’mycoplasma pneumonia,' and do not even test for the COVID-19. This is unreasonable in terms of statistical epidemiology.”

China’s CDC has mostly blamed “mycoplasma pneumonia” for the current pneumonia outbreak.

Dr. Dong said that JN.1 has multiple features. In addition to its fast transmission speed, which is seven to eight times faster than the original XBB, it also has enhanced immune evasion capacity because of two new mutations.

On Dec. 12, Wang Pengfei, a researcher at the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University in Shanghai, told The Paper that considering the decline in antibody levels after the previous wave of COVID-19 infection and the strong immune evasion of JN.1, it may be possible to see a peak in disease from January to March in 2024 in China. However, due to the complex infection background of the current population, it is difficult to predict the intensity of the new round of disease outbreak.

Patients are cared for by relatives and medical staff as they are seen on beds set up in the atrium area of a busy hospital in Shanghai, China, on Jan. 13, 2023. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The JN.1 sub-variant was first detected in samples collected in Luxembourg on Aug. 25. It has since been reported in more than a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland, and others.

On Dec. 8, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) separately included JN.1 in its COVID virus nowcast (SARS-CoV-2 Nowcast) for the first time, stating that JN.1 is currently the fastest growing COVID virus variant in the United States. As of that day, the CDC estimated that JN.1 accounted for 15 to 29 percent of the prevalent mutant strains in the United States. At the end of October, it only accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the COVID-19 mutant strains in the United States.

Dr. Dong said, “With such rapid growth in infection abroad, it sounds very strange that China’s growth is so slow and the number of cases is still at a single-digit level. Because we have seen during the pandemic in the past few years, the outbreak in China is basically synchronized with the outbreaks abroad.”

Regarding the timing of the CCP admitting the new variant causing infection, current affairs commentator Zhong Yuan told The Epoch Times on Dec. 18 that the CCP had previously refused to acknowledge COVID-19 variants could be causing the outbreak because they were hoping to shift the blame to other countries.

“The CCP does not admit that it’s another wave COVID in the country, and only says it’s influenza or pneumonia. However, it has reintroduced prevention measures exactly the same as the COVID epidemic prevention requirements, and quietly restarted COVID-19 PCR testing,” he said.

Fast-Worsening Outbreak

The pneumonia outbreak in mainland China is rapidly worsening, with a large number of people have been infected across the country. Citizens have told media outlets and posted on social media that the severity of the epidemic has been beyond imagination.

An attending physician of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Department at a tertiary hospital posted a video on her verified account “TCM Inheritance Health” that has 1.31 million followers, saying on Dec. 15 that “the new COVID-19 mutant strain has come, and the infection is increasing explosively. There may be a peak of infections around New Year’s Day.”

She added that the recent outbreak of “mycoplasma pneumonia” in Xi’an, the provincial capital of Shaanxi, has continued. Once a child is infected, it will be very painful, and if not careful, it will cause “white lungs.”

Doctors were looking at a lung CT image at a hospital in Yunmeng county, Xiaogan city, in China's central Hubei province on Feb. 20, 2020. AFP via Getty Images

Tao Yuan, deputy chief physician of the Ophthalmology Department of Jinan Second People’s Hospital, said in a video on Dec. 13 that the “mycoplasma pneumonia” outbreak in Anhui Province in east China has become increasingly severe recently. And “mycoplasma pneumonia” has begun to spread on a large scale in Shaanxi Province in northwest China, where many hospitals are full of children who are coughing and have fevers.

The deputy chief physician of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine said in a social media post on Dec. 15 that there has been a major outbreak of “mycoplasma pneumonia” in Shaanxi Province.

Ms. Hong, who lives in Weicheng District of Xianyang City in central Shaanxi Province, told the Epoch Times on Dec. 13: “I also have cold-like symptoms and feel very uncomfortable. Many neighbors are infected. My relatives who were infected went to the hospital but couldn’t get a hospital bed. I didn’t expect the outbreak to be so serious now. It’s beyond my imagination and it’s another big wave.”

People with protective masks walk at Nanjing road in Shanghai, China, on Dec. 11, 2022. Hu Chengwei/Getty Images

Xianyang authorities have recently issued a notice requiring all residents to get the new COVID-19 vaccinations.

Ms. Wang from Xianyang City told The Epoch Times, “In the afternoon of Dec. 12, our community issued the notice. But it seems that no one is willing to get vaccinated. Restarting the vaccination shows that the COVID-19 epidemic is spreading again, and it’s already been very serious.”

A netizen in Guizhou Province in southwest China, whose account name is “Ginseng Tree Takes You Travel,” said in her program on social media on Dec. 15 that her twin daughters were both infected with ”mycoplasma pneumonia.” The younger daughter’s condition is more serious. A chest X-ray showed that her “mycoplasma pneumonia” had progressed into emphysema. Zunyi Medical University Hospital was very short of beds and they could only stay in the outpatient clinic for observation. It was not until the next day that the twin girls were admitted to the ward.

Mycoplasma pneumonia infections do not typically lead to severe respiratory conditions like emphysema or “white lung” syndrome.

The netizen revealed that the roads to the hospital were very crowded, with people coming from surrounding counties and towns going to the top hospital in the province to seek treatment.

Ning Haizhong, Luo Ya, Fang Xiao, and Li Xi contributed to this report.