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NEW DELHI: With a fresh Covid-19 spurt in China, Japan and the US ringing alarm bells globally, the government has called a meeting of top health officials Wednesday, to be presided over by Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya. Upping its vigil, the health ministry has written to all states to increase genome sequencing to track coronavirus variants for timely identification of any possible cluster.
Directions have been issued to states and Union territories to send samples of all Covid-positive cases to Insacog labs – a consortium of 52 laboratories across the country – to track new possible variants. This will enable timely detection of newer variants, if any, circulating in the country and help in taking public health measures, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in the letter written to the states/UTs on Tuesday.
The government action follows an explosive rise in the number of cases in China following relaxation of its ‘zero Covid‘ policy. It has led to a high influx of patients in hospitals and even morgues are running full in many parts of the country, reports have said.
Chairman of the Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization Dr NK Arora said China’s crisis has been fuelled by multiple factors including lack of natural infection due to its ‘zero Covid’ policy.
China Covid surge sparks variant worry
Cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics on Tuesday as authorities reported five more deaths and international concern grew about Beijing’s surprise decision to let the virus run free. China this month began dismantling its stringent “zero-Covid” regime of lockdowns and testing after protests against curbs that had kept the virus at bay for three years but at a big cost to society and the world’s second-largest economy. Now, as the virus sweeps through a country of 1.4 billion people who lack natural immunity having been shielded for so long, there is growing concern about possible deaths, virus mutations and the impact on the economy and trade.
“Every new epidemic wave in another country brings the risk of new variants, and this risk is higher the bigger the outbreak, and the current wave in China is shaping up to be big,” said Alex Cook, vice-dean for research at the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. “However, inevitably China has to go through a large wave of Covid-19 if it is to reach an endemic state, in a future without lockdowns and the economic and political damage that results.” US state department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday the potential for the virus to mutate as it spreads in China was “a threat for people everywhere”.
Xu Wenbo, an official with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters new mutations would occur but played down concerns. “New strains’ immune escape ability becomes stronger, more contagious,” Xu said. “But the possibility of them becoming more lethal is low. The possibility of strains that are more contagious and more pathogenic is even lower.”
Beijing reported five Covid-related deaths on Tuesday, following two on Monday, which were the first fatalities reported in weeks. In total, China has reported 5,242 Covid deaths since the pandemic emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019, a very low toll by global standards. But there are rising doubts that the statistics are reflecting the true impact of a disease ripping through cities after China dropped curbs including most mandatory testing on December 7. Since then, some hospitals have become inundated, pharmacies emptied of medicines, while many people have gone into self-imposed lockdowns, straining delivery services.
In the capital, Beijing, security guards patrolled the entrance of a designated Covid crematorium where journalists on Saturday saw a long line of hearses and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside.
Speaking at the same news conference as Xu, the head of Peking University First Hospital’s infectious disease department Wang Guiqiang said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting Covid would be classified as Covid deaths. Heart attacks or cardiovascular disease causing death of infected people will not get that classification.
Top health officials have softened their tone on the threat posed by the disease in recent weeks. Nevertheless, there are mounting signs the virus is buffeting China’s fragile health system. Cities are ramping up efforts to expand intensive care units and build fever clinics, facilities designed to prevent the wider spread of contagious disease in hospitals. In the past week, major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Wenzhou announced they had added hundreds of fever clinics, some in converted sports facilities. reuters
Directions have been issued to states and Union territories to send samples of all Covid-positive cases to Insacog labs – a consortium of 52 laboratories across the country – to track new possible variants. This will enable timely detection of newer variants, if any, circulating in the country and help in taking public health measures, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in the letter written to the states/UTs on Tuesday.
The government action follows an explosive rise in the number of cases in China following relaxation of its ‘zero Covid‘ policy. It has led to a high influx of patients in hospitals and even morgues are running full in many parts of the country, reports have said.
Chairman of the Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization Dr NK Arora said China’s crisis has been fuelled by multiple factors including lack of natural infection due to its ‘zero Covid’ policy.
China Covid surge sparks variant worry
Cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics on Tuesday as authorities reported five more deaths and international concern grew about Beijing’s surprise decision to let the virus run free. China this month began dismantling its stringent “zero-Covid” regime of lockdowns and testing after protests against curbs that had kept the virus at bay for three years but at a big cost to society and the world’s second-largest economy. Now, as the virus sweeps through a country of 1.4 billion people who lack natural immunity having been shielded for so long, there is growing concern about possible deaths, virus mutations and the impact on the economy and trade.
“Every new epidemic wave in another country brings the risk of new variants, and this risk is higher the bigger the outbreak, and the current wave in China is shaping up to be big,” said Alex Cook, vice-dean for research at the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. “However, inevitably China has to go through a large wave of Covid-19 if it is to reach an endemic state, in a future without lockdowns and the economic and political damage that results.” US state department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday the potential for the virus to mutate as it spreads in China was “a threat for people everywhere”.
Xu Wenbo, an official with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters new mutations would occur but played down concerns. “New strains’ immune escape ability becomes stronger, more contagious,” Xu said. “But the possibility of them becoming more lethal is low. The possibility of strains that are more contagious and more pathogenic is even lower.”
Beijing reported five Covid-related deaths on Tuesday, following two on Monday, which were the first fatalities reported in weeks. In total, China has reported 5,242 Covid deaths since the pandemic emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019, a very low toll by global standards. But there are rising doubts that the statistics are reflecting the true impact of a disease ripping through cities after China dropped curbs including most mandatory testing on December 7. Since then, some hospitals have become inundated, pharmacies emptied of medicines, while many people have gone into self-imposed lockdowns, straining delivery services.
In the capital, Beijing, security guards patrolled the entrance of a designated Covid crematorium where journalists on Saturday saw a long line of hearses and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside.
Speaking at the same news conference as Xu, the head of Peking University First Hospital’s infectious disease department Wang Guiqiang said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting Covid would be classified as Covid deaths. Heart attacks or cardiovascular disease causing death of infected people will not get that classification.
Top health officials have softened their tone on the threat posed by the disease in recent weeks. Nevertheless, there are mounting signs the virus is buffeting China’s fragile health system. Cities are ramping up efforts to expand intensive care units and build fever clinics, facilities designed to prevent the wider spread of contagious disease in hospitals. In the past week, major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Wenzhou announced they had added hundreds of fever clinics, some in converted sports facilities. reuters
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