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Global alarm grows as Covid infections surge in China

An explosion of Covid-19 cases in China could create a "potential breeding ground" for new variants to emerge, health experts warn.

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Beijing has provided only limited data about circulating variants in China to global databases and its testing and reporting on new cases have also diminished.

The United States is the latest in a growing number of countries to impose restrictions on visitors from China after Beijing abruptly removed a major impediment to overseas travel despite surging Covid cases at home.

Hospitals across China have been overwhelmed by an explosion of Covid cases following Beijing's decision to lift strict rules that had largely kept the virus at bay but tanked its economy and sparked widespread protests.

On Monday, the country said it would bring an end to mandatory quarantine on arrival – prompting many jubilant Chinese citizens to make plans to travel abroad.

In response, the United States and a number of other countries announced they would require negative Covid tests for all travellers from mainland China.

"The recent rapid increase in Covid-19 transmission in China increases the potential for new variants emerging," a senior US health official told reporters in a phone briefing.

Limited data

Beijing has provided only limited data about circulating variants in China to global databases, the official said, and its testing and reporting on new cases have also diminished.

The US move came after Italy, Japan, India and Malaysia announced their own measures in a bid to protect against importing new Covid variants from China.

Beijing has hit out against "hyping, smearing and political manipulation" by the Western media concerning its Covid response.

"Currently China's epidemic situation is all predictable and under control," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a briefing Wednesday.

China still does not allow foreign visitors, however, with the issuance of visas for overseas tourists and students still suspended.

But the lifting of mandatory quarantines sparked a surge in interest in overseas travel by Chinese citizens, who have been largely confined to their country since Beijing pulled down the drawbridge in March 2020.

Risk of increase in new variants

An explosion of Covid-19 cases in China could create a "potential breeding ground" for new variants to emerge, health experts have warned.

Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told AFP news agency that each new infection increased the chance the virus would mutate.

"The fact that 1.4 billion people are suddenly exposed to SARS-CoV-2 obviously creates conditions prone to emerging variants," Flahault said, referring to the virus that causes the Covid-19 disease.

Bruno Lina, a virology professor at France's Lyon University, told the La Croix newspaper this week that China could become a "potential breeding ground for the virus".

Soumya Swaminathan, who served as the World Health Organization's chief scientist until November, said a large part of the Chinese population was vulnerable to infection in part because many elderly people had not been vaccinated or boosted.

"We need to keep a close watch on any emerging concerning variants," she told the website of the Indian Express newspaper.

SOURCE: AFP