ECONOMYNEXT – A massive surge in COVID-19 cases in China after Beijing removed restrictions has led to uncertainty about the worldwide threat level and potential disruptions to global supply chains, but experts are cautiously optimistic that a sequel to 2020 is unlikely unless a new dangerous variant emerges, a possibility that they also hesitate to rule out.
“Many countries have many variants of COVID, so unless a very different variant emerges, we will not get another pandemic,” Prof Neelika Malavige at the Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, said.
“But there is always a possibility of a completely different variant emerging. This is why we need to strengthen our surveillance,” she said.
International media reported that China is now facing what is likely the world’s largest surge in cases, with public health officials warning that possibly 800 million people could be infected with the virus over the next few months. NPR reported that several models predict that half a million people could die, if not more.
Malavige told EconomyNext Wednesday December 21 morning that Sri Lanka needs to strengthen its gene sequencing efforts.
“We last sequenced three weeks ago. There are no samples for sequencing at present. This is the issue, which is really not an issue. We have an influenza problem but COVID cases are low at least for now,” she said.
Citing data from GISAID, the global science initiative that reports on sequencing, the expert said that China has the same variant that Sri Lanka has: Omicron and its offshoots. International reports attribute China’s ongoing surge to a few highly transmissible subvariants of omicron.
“The issue is that while the rest of the world is reporting low transmission, there is very high transmission in China,” said Malavige.
“It’s the perfect environment for the emergence of new variants,” she said.
However, a variant that causes havoc in one country may not cause as much damage in another country, the professor said, citing the XBB variant as an example.
“We have many XBB variant series in Sri Lanka, but they’re not causing much of an issue,” she said.
Sri Lanka, currently going through its worst currency crisis, is in the midst of a multipronged effort to revive its tourism sector, which was ravaged by the pandemic, worsening the country’s forex shortage. Tourism industry representatives say the island nation is not in a position to shut its doors to tourists from anywhere.
Prof Malavige does not believe there is a need to close Sri Lanka’s borders to anyone at present.
“We need to monitor what’s coming so we know. But if the Chinese tourists do have some variant the rest of the world doesn’t have, we can’t stop it by boarder control,” she said.
The expert pointed out that Sri Lanka had no surge in cases when the US and many other countries with a colder climate reported raging outbreaks due to XBB variants
“In China what is happening is very expected. If you have any of these variants with an R0 of 14 introduced to a relatively naive population, you obviously get what we are seeing.
“But with such intense transmission new variants can emerge. This is what other countries are trying to monitor. Otherwise it’s impossible to stop things coming in. By the time any country detects a variant, it will already be inside. Fortunately, in Sri Lanka, we have vaccinated all vulnerable and many people have taken boosters. On top of that quite a large proportion have had natural infection. So our population has hybrid immunity,” she said.
Asked if there’s no real risk of a massive surge in cases in Sri Lanka, Malavige said: “It is highly unlikely. Not with the current ones in China. If a completely new one emerges, then there is a risk, but it’s not going to be like delta, which hit us when we had very low immunisation levels.”
The Guardian reported quoting World Health Organisation (WHO)-affiliated experts that allowing the virus to spread domestically in China could also give it the chance to mutate, potentially creating a dangerous new variant.
China’s zero-Covid approach kept infections and deaths comparatively low among the population of 1.4 billion, but a relaxation in rules has changed the global picture, these experts have said.
“The question is whether you can call it post-pandemic when such a significant part of the world is actually just entering its second wave,” the Guardian quoted Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans as saying. Koopmans sits on a WHO committee tasked with advising on the status of the Covid emergency.
“It’s clear that we are in a very different phase [of the pandemic], but in my mind, that pending wave in China is a wild card.”
Koopmans and other WHO advisory committee members are due to make a recommendation on the global alert level in late January, the report said, but the final decision rests with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in September said “the end is in sight” for the pandemic. (Colombo/Dec21/2022)