China remains vigilant in the face of a health alert still surrounding Covid, warning of a new wave that could peak at about 65 million infections a week by the end of June, according to a senior health adviser. Given the situation in the country, the health authorities are rushing to reinforce their arsenal of vaccines to attack the latest omicron variants.
The XBB variant has fueled a resurgence of cases across China since late April and is expected to result in 40 million infections a week by the end of May, before peaking at 65 million a month later, the outlet reported on Monday. local news outlet The Paper, citing a presentation by respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan at a biotechnology conference in the southern city of Guangzhou.
Their estimate provides a rare glimpse of how this new wave may play out, with immunity among the country's 1.4 billion residents waning and nearly six months after Beijing's sudden rollback of Covid Zero measures — which fueled the spread. of the covid in an uncontrolled way. As a result of the turn of the authorities accepting to live with the virus, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention stopped updating its weekly statistics, preventing the impact of covid on the population from being known.
The estimate of 65 million cases from disease modeling indicates that the resurgence is likely to be more moderate compared to the previous wave unleashed late last year and through January. Back then, a subvariant of omicron was infecting 37 million people every day, leaving residents in short supply of fever-reducing drugs and overwhelming hospitals and crematoriums across the country.
China is also preparing to launch new vaccines targeting XBBs. The country's drug regulator has already given preliminary approval to two, while another three or four "will be authorized soon," Zhong said. “We can lead the international development of more effective vaccines.”
The batch of XBB-specific doses will also add to a growing number of homegrown immunizations that Beijing has approved during the pandemic, and is in line with a recommendation from a World Health Organization expert panel, which last week past advised to stop using the original Wuhan strain for future shots.
WestVac Biopharma, a vaccine developer based in the western Chinese city of Chengdu, also got the go-ahead to start testing its XBB-based injections in humans last week.
