Mary Wilson
Well-known member
07 June 2023
Update 09 June 2023
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01872-7
Yvaine Ye
The latest surge in COVID-19 cases in China is not surprising to researchers, who say that China will see an infection cycle every six months now that all COVID-19 restrictions have been removed and highly infectious variants are dominant. But they caution that rolling waves of infection carry the risk of new variants emerging.
“Unfortunately, a new reality with this virus [is that] we will have repeated infections,” says Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. “The fear is that this virus will produce a new variant that can compete with the current ones and is more severe.”
The current surge is caused mainly by a highly infectious subvariant of Omicron called XBB.1.5, first identified in India last August. According to Nanshan Zhong, a prominent respiratory physician in China, as many as 65 million people could become infected per week by the end this month.
This is the first major reinfection wave that China has seen since the central government dropped all its COVID-19 control measures in December, prompting a widespread Omicron outbreak. ...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01872-7
Update 09 June 2023
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01872-7
Yvaine Ye
The latest surge in COVID-19 cases in China is not surprising to researchers, who say that China will see an infection cycle every six months now that all COVID-19 restrictions have been removed and highly infectious variants are dominant. But they caution that rolling waves of infection carry the risk of new variants emerging.
“Unfortunately, a new reality with this virus [is that] we will have repeated infections,” says Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. “The fear is that this virus will produce a new variant that can compete with the current ones and is more severe.”
The current surge is caused mainly by a highly infectious subvariant of Omicron called XBB.1.5, first identified in India last August. According to Nanshan Zhong, a prominent respiratory physician in China, as many as 65 million people could become infected per week by the end this month.
This is the first major reinfection wave that China has seen since the central government dropped all its COVID-19 control measures in December, prompting a widespread Omicron outbreak. ...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01872-7