Today, experts warned that China’s Covid turmoil might put the rest of the globe back to square one in the fight against the epidemic.
Since Beijing reversed its contentious zero Covid policy a month ago, hospitals have been overburdened and mortuaries have become full. In the following months, up to one million people could die from the virus, according to alarming forecasts.
It is believed that low immunity, due to low vaccination rates and a lack of previous infections, is driving the outbreak.
The chief of the World Health Organization claimed that China’s catastrophic position indicates that the pandemic has not ended.
Now, experts are warning that the new outbreak, which shows no signs of abating, could have worldwide repercussions, especially for the United Kingdom and the United States.
Professor Martin McKee, a public health expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, stated that China’s capitulation could lead to the emergence of new strains.
He started to MailOnline, “The pandemic is by no means done.”
“And we continue to see around 1,300 people with Covid in the hospital every day in England, even though the NHS is grappling with high flu rates.”
Pân’à présent, China has maintained a fairly low death rate but has failed to exploit this period to increase immunization rates, particularly among the elderly.
This has repercussions not only for China, with high death rates and probable political upheaval, but also for the rest of the world, with the possibility of new strains and supply chain disruptions.
Unfortunately, there is still much work to be done to boost worldwide immunization rates and to redouble pandemic preparedness measures.
Dr. Simon Clarke, a microbiologist from the University of Reading, told MailOnline, ‘It is accurate to state that the epidemic is not over; the developed world has simply entered a new phase.
‘The threat of new variations will always be present, and the absence of immunity imparted by vaccination in some parts of the world only makes this more likely. I doubt that vaccination could ever eliminate this risk.
We have seen in the past how readily variants can be flown over the world, and I doubt there is the political will to prevent it from happening again.
Professor Peter Hotez of Baylor University in Texas, a virologist, stated that the spike could lead to new strains like the deadly Delta type that fueled the spring 2021 outbreak in the West.
The unrestrained spread of Covid among a large unvaccinated or under-vaccinated population in China could foster new varieties, comparable to the emergence of Delta among an unvaccinated population in India in early 2021, he tweeted.
However, not all pandemic observers are as concerned.
The substrain of BF.7 Omicron believed to be responsible for the present outbreak has not been proved to have an advantage over Western variations.
Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in public health at the University of East Anglia, stated, “I do not believe that the situation in China poses a serious risk to many other nations.” The majority of the remainder of the world has hybrid immunity.
‘It is said that the BF.7 form of Omicron is driving the wave in China, however, this variety does not appear to have a growth edge over other variants on a worldwide scale.
Yes, another version could and likely will emerge, as they are always occurring, but each new variant appears to offer diminishing incremental benefits over the prior ones.
Additionally, hybrid immunity has provided excellent protection against severe diseases caused by both novel and older types.
Professor David Livermore, a microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, stated that the less effective vaccines used in China are unlikely to select for vaccine-resistant strains.
The effectiveness of the Chinese Covid vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, is commonly regarded as being inferior to that of the mRNA vaccines used by the majority of other nations.
He told MailOnline, “I don’t believe this increase has significant repercussions for the rest of the world.”
While the Chinese vaccinations are not particularly successful, they at least induce antibodies to many viral proteins by targeting the entire virus. This should make it more difficult for the virus to evolve against them.
‘The selection pressure for the emergence of novel variants appears to be strongest in infected individuals who have previously received one of the western mRNA or DNA vaccines.
These vaccines primarily target the extremely changeable spike protein of the virus; it is this variability that gives the means for vaccine evasion.
According to experts, the outbreak was triggered by President Xi Jinping’s administration maintaining its zero Covid policy for so long after the introduction of vaccines.
The hermit policy left the Chinese populace with minimal or no natural immunity.
In contrast, countries in the West, notably the United Kingdom, have resorted to living with the virus, which now offers a less severe threat as a result of vaccination and natural infection.
The average number of Covid cases per day in China decreased by 47 percent in one week, to 1,801 on December 20.
The number of infections appears to have peaked on November 29, when it surpassed 71,000.
As a result of the Government’s U-turn, bulk testing in China has been halted, rendering the statistics highly untrustworthy.
Even the Chinese government admits it does not know the true numbers, but scientists believe the virus is spreading rapidly.
A physician from the First Hospital of Peking University, Wang Guangfa, described the wave as a “pandemic tsunami.”
Professor Christina Pagel, a mathematician at University College London, told MailOnline, ‘China’s wave is terrible for them, especially considering that almost one-third of their senior population is unvaccinated, making them more susceptible to being critically ill with Covid.
‘According to a study published this week, although Omicron is less severe than Delta, it has roughly the same severity as the coronavirus strain that destroyed so many countries in 2020.
‘It is quite difficult to predict the global impact of the wave in terms of varieties, not least because the virus would be evolving in a population that is vastly different from that.
Most people in Britain have received at least three doses of vaccination and have also been infected.
Whom Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued the following statement on Wednesday: “WHO is deeply worried about the deteriorating situation in China, as serious disease reports continue to rise.”
China, which has been repeatedly accused of manipulating its data, reported no new Covid deaths on Wednesday and deducted one death from their total toll, bringing the total to 5,241.
This Monday, Wang Guiqiang, the chief of infectious disease at the First Hospital of Peking University, verified that deaths among patients with pre-existing illnesses are not counted as Covid deaths.
In the majority of nations, including the United Kingdom and the United States, it is a requirement that any death in which Covid was a factor or contributor be counted as a connected death.
Tuesday’s remarks by Wang revealed to the public what the country has been doing during the outbreak.
