China, tens of millions infected

China enters second wave

Poor data, cases, infections, hospitalisations, deaths, genomes

https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn

Population 1,412,600,000

Will be infected in next 6 weeks

Daily new infection rate over an 8 week period

Per week = 176,575,000

Per day = 25,225,011

World meter
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/

Actual deaths
https://covid19.healthdata.org/china?view=cumulative-deaths&tab=trend

Over the next 3 months

Therefore about 100,000 deaths per month

About 3,300 per day

Population 1,412,600,000

Infection fatality rate = 0.000207

Main variants

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202211/1280588.shtml

New ‘stealth omicron’ variant spreading fast in China

Omicron, BF.7, (BA.5.2.1.7)

Sub-lineage of omicron variant BA.5

Italy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/12/29/europe-debates-tougher-covid-restrictions-half-chinese-arrivals/

Flight into Milan’s Malpensa airport

Mandatory Covid tests for flights from China

December 26

First flight, 38% tested positive

Second flight, 52% tested positive

Positives to be used for genomic testing

Spallanzani Institute, Italy, Infectious diseases hospital

It would be better if the coordination of surveillance should take place at a European level

Screening passengers from China

Italy, US, India, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan

UK not testing arrivals from China

26 direct flights due in January

Half a million visitors per year

Immune-evasive / more transmissible variant

Lots of people infected today

Some with immune compromise

Ongoing contact with potential animal reservoirs

Potential for reverse zoonosis

Professor Aris Katzourakis, Evolution and Genomics, University of Oxford

I am not going to predict a direction, but there will be a whole lot of opportunity for rapid change

Xu Wenbo, China, Center for Disease Control and Prevention

More than 130 omicron sublineages,

detected in China over the last three months

The fact that 1.4 billion people are suddenly exposed to SARS-CoV-2 obviously creates conditions prone to emerging variants

Antoine Flahault, Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva

Any variants, when more transmissible than the previous dominant ones, definitely represent threats, since they can cause new waves

When is a covid death a covid death?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/21/china-covid-infection-surge-puts-end-of-global-emergency-in-doubt-who

http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/s3574/202212/a9510969ad85461297016f6ad1c87770.shtml

Prof Wang Guiqiang, National Health Commission

Revised its guidelines,

to scientifically and objectively reflect deaths caused by the coronavirus pandemic

Only fatalities caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure

Not deaths caused by cardiovascular, cerebrovascular diseases, blood clots, sepsis

the main cause of death from infection with Omicron is the underlying diseases

Source