As China’s Covid Case Increases, American Press Gins Up Fears About New Variants

As China’s Covid Case Increases, American Press Gins Up Fears About New Variants

The last time I reported on China, it had given up trying to contain the uncontainable virus, and its Great Wall of Zero Covid had crumbled.

Leaked numbers from officials indicate the covid case count could top 250 million for December.

Almost 250 million people in China may have caught Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, according to an internal estimate from the nation’s top health officials, Bloomberg News and the Financial Times reported Friday.

If correct, the estimate – which CNN cannot independently confirm – would account for roughly 18% of China’s 1.4 billion people and represent the largest Covid-19 outbreak to date globally.

The caseloads are so high that China has stopped publishing daily covid numbers.

China has stopped publishing daily COVID-19 data, adding to concerns that the country’s leadership may be concealing negative information about the pandemic following the easing of restrictions.

China’s National Health Commission said in a statement that it would no longer publish the data daily beginning Sunday and that “from now on, the Chinese CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) will release relevant COVID information for reference and research.” The NHC did not say why the change had been made and did not indicate how often the CDC would release data.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., our media intends to make China’s experience a drama for Americans. Therefore, the press focuses on new variants that may arise from China.

Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world?

Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say.

“China has a population that is very large and there’s limited immunity. And that seems to be the setting in which we may see an explosion of a new variant,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.

Every new infection offers a chance for the coronavirus to mutate, and the virus is spreading rapidly in China. The country of 1.4 billion has largely abandoned its “zero COVID” policy. Though overall reported vaccination rates are high, booster levels are lower, especially among older people. Domestic vaccines have proven less effective against serious infection than Western-made messenger RNA versions. Many were given more than a year ago, meaning immunity has waned.

The result? Fertile ground for the virus to change.

Interestingly, as this is happening, China is ending its covid quarantines for international travelers.

China announced late Monday that travelers will no longer need to quarantine upon arrival on the mainland starting Jan. 8.

The forthcoming shift follows an abrupt relaxation this month in domestic Covid controls. The changes end the bulk of the most restrictive measures that China had imposed for nearly three years under its zero-Covid policy.

Since March 2020, travelers to the mainland have had to quarantine, typically at a designated hotel and for 14 days. That isolation period subsequently began to increase to 21 days or more for some travelers, before China began cutting quarantine times this summer.

Current policy requires five days of quarantine at a centralized facility, followed by three days at home.

Now it looks like the U.S. government may impose new measures on travelers to the United States from China over concerns about the “lack of transparent data” coming from Beijing.

The move comes after Japan, India and Malaysia announced stepped up rules on travelers from China in the last 24 hours, citing a rise in infections there.

Japan has said it would require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travelers from the China. Malaysia put in place additional tracking and surveillance measures.

“There are mounting concerns in the international community on the ongoing COVID-19 surges in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, being reported from the PRC,” the officials said, using the initials of the People’s Republic of China.

This is where we were three years ago, and it will take us years to recover from the destructive policy mistakes made. Perhaps Twitter 2.0 will be more helpful in allowing the debate necessary to create more effective approaches to dealing with covid.

Hopefully, our public health officials have learned you cannot contain an airborne virus…especially one that appears to be custom-designed to adhere to the human respiratory system.

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