Can the infection boom in China threaten the West? This is what the experts say

Right now, a wave of corona infection is washing over China.

according to Bloomberg and Financial Times infects at least 37 million Chinese daily, and in the last month 250 million have been infected by the virus.

Now one of the questions is whether the frequent spread of infection can provide fertile ground for new mutations that could threaten our existence in the West.

According to professor of medical microbiology, Ørjan Olsvik at the University of Tromsø, new variants are inevitable, but it is not certain that the situation will get worse for that reason.

– There will be new mutations, but we only discover those that worsen the situation. One can hope for a variant that is easily contagious, but which causes little disease and very good immunity, says Olsvik.

This usually happens

When asked if it is possible that the infection boom in China could produce more dangerous viruses that can bypass Western vaccines, the professor replies that everything is theoretically possible.

– But that is not what usually happens. When a virus mutates, it is often in a direction where the virus becomes able to spread. The usual thing is that you get a variant that infects quickly, but does not make people ill.

According to Olsvik, it is a different variant that is ravaging China than the one that dominates in Norway.

The last one the weekly report from FHI shows that it is the BQ1.1 variant that dominates in Norway now.

– In China they have a BF-7 variant. The vaccine still provides good protection against serious illness and death, but not infection, says Olsvik.

Chinese vaccine?

In contrast to large parts of the world, China has given the population an in-house developed vaccine. This is not an mRNA vaccine like Pfizer/Biontech, but a traditional variant.

– We don’t really know how much worse this is, because China has not published all the figures. They themselves say that it is safe, but they have probably had their vaccine-induced problems too.

Throughout the pandemic, the Chinese authorities have had a zero infection strategy.

Any outbreaks have led to immediate, local closures to stifle the infection.

While the Western world has vaccinated and opened up, it is only in the last month that China has allowed the virus to run wild in the country. Olsvik says China must now deal with a problem they have pushed in front of them.

– The zero-contagion tactic had a positive effect in the beginning. They thought they were successful with little infection and the opportunity to have people in work and let society function, says Olsvik and continues:

– Now they have a backlog which is worrying for China, and it can become problematic for the countries that have close cooperation with them if things shut down.

FHI: – A drop in the ocean

Chief physician Preben Aavitsland at the Institute of Public Health (FHI) is not significantly concerned about import infection from China.

– We have hundreds of thousands who are infected by corona in Norway every week. A few hundred additional cases of arrivals from China are a drop in the ocean, he says.

– Import infection is completely uninteresting when there is the same amount of infection in Narvik, Naples, Nagoya and Nashville.

Virus mutations are not a concern either. Aavitsland reminds that virus mutations happen all the time.

– That’s what viruses do. In the past year, many new varieties have appeared, but none of them have given cause for serious concern.

As of now, there is no variant out there that both infects better and causes more serious disease, says the superintendent.

Press in hospital

Aavitsland says that FHI has a good overview of the current infection situation, and that there are a number of other things that burden the healthcare system.

– The biggest challenge now is that many people fall ill with corona, influenza, RSV infection, colds, sore throats and communicable diseases, so that there is pressure on emergency rooms and hospitals at the same time as part of the health personnel are ill.

For the time being, it is not appropriate to recommend new corona measures. This is determined by the capacity of the hospitals and the country’s intensive care units, says Aavitsland, and elaborates:

– Right before Christmas we had a meeting with the country’s county doctors and the regional health organisations. They reported that the situation was challenging in some places, but that it could be handled safely.

No entry measures

According to the Directorate of Health, they are now closely monitoring the infection situation in China.

Nevertheless, the Norwegian authorities have not yet considered entry measures from the eastern part of the country.

– There is currently a greater spread of infection internally in Norway than in many other countries, and very few people also travel from China to Norway compared to the travel activity between Nordic and European countries, writes assistant director of health Espen Rostrup Nakstad in an email to TV 2.

– Therefore, we have not considered special measures for travelers from China in the current situation.

The United States announced on Wednesday that it will introduce a requirement for a negative test for passengers from China.

The reason was both the strong increase in infection in Chinese society and a lack of information about the varieties that have been registered.

Japan, India, South Korea, Malaysia and Italy are other countries that introduce requirements for a negative test for passengers from China. In Germany, the health authorities are following developments closely, but no concrete measures have so far been implemented.