China at risk of potential new variants
China’s ongoing COVID-19 crisis with rising cases could become a “cauldron of virus evolution”, according to experts. Apart from the increasing cases, multiple factors like China’s poor vaccine uptake, use of less effective vaccines, and zero-COVID approach could be responsible for these potential new and deadlier strains.
China is also facing a significant public backlash against the zero-COVID stance which involves closures of businesses, schools, shops and other public amenities.
Infection rate in China
As per data, China recorded 38,421 new infections on Tuesday. Over the weekend, China witnessed a record high of 39,791 new cases, so new case numbers now seem to be on a decline.
Breeding ground for potentially worse variants
Experts warn that China could become the ideal breeding ground for potentially worse variants. One of the biggest reasons for this possibility is lower natural immunity in people from being largely sheltered from previous waves. The overall vaccination rate in China is also low.
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No wall of protective immunity
“Overall, a combination of vaccine hesitancy, the use of less effective vaccines — certainly compared to mRNA spike vaccines — and relatively low waves of previous infection due to the zero-COVID policy means that the population does not have a wall of protective immunity," Virologist Professor Lawrence Young of Warwick University told MailOnline.
Professor Young further explained, “Not only does this run the risk of widespread infection resulting in high levels of severe disease and death, but it also provides an ideal environment for the breeding of new variants.”
China’s vaccines are less effective
Experts also believe that China’s vaccines — Sinovac and Sinopharm — appear to be less effective, compared to others found to be more effective, such as those used in the UK. China has still not approved the use of the more-effective mRNA vaccines used by most of the rest of the world. Further, the vaccination rates are also low. Beijing’s National Health Commission recently shared that only 65.8 percent of Chinese residents in the age group 80 and over are fully vaccinated.
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Some experts disagree
Some experts argue that SARS-CoV-2 is likely to become less lethal over time. University College London computational biologist Professor Francois Balloux, told MailOnline, “The major variants we have seen — Alpha, Delta and Omicron — likely arose from long-term infections in immunocompromised patients. As such, a major surge in China is not expected to drastically increase the risk of emergence of new variants, at least not in the very short term.”
Further, according to health experts, the COVID-19 vaccines presently in use are expected to remain effective against the majority of potential future COVID-19 variants.