expressed concern about the lack of data from china while the us is requiring a negative test result for travelers from china within 48 hours of departurechinese health authorities publish a daily count of new cases severe cases and deaths but those numbers include only officially confirmed cases and use a very narrow definition of covidrelated deathschina has said the testing requirements arent sciencebased and has threatened unspecified countermeasures its spokespeople have said the situation is under control and reject accusations of a lack of preparation for reopeningif a variant emerges in an outbreak it is found through genetic sequencing of the virussince the pandemic started china has shared 4144 sequences with gisaid a global platform for coronavirus data thats only 004 of its reported number of cases a rate more than 100 times less than the united states and nearly four times less than neighboring mongoliameanwhile hong kong also plans to reopen some of its border crossings with mainland china on sunday and allow tens of thousands of people to cross every day without being quarantinedthe semiautonomous southern chinese city has been hardhit by the virus and its land and sea border checkpoints with the mainland have been largely closed for almost three years despite the risk the reopening is expected to provide a muchneeded boost to hong kongs tourism and retail sectors