Masked commuters walk through a walkway in between two subway stations as they head to work during the morning rush hour in Beijing, on Tuesday. AP
New Delhi: After the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, China is experiencing a massive surge in coronavirus cases with the hospitals completely overwhelmed, crematoriums overburdened and new cases crossing 10,000 on a daily basis.
Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, has estimated that over 60 per cent of China and 10 per cent of Earth’s population are likely to be infected over the next three months with deaths likely in the millions.
According to Feigl-Ding, the Chinese Communist Party’s goal is “let whoever needs to be infected, infected, let whoever needs to die, die. Early infections, early deaths, early peak, early resumption of production.”
Which COVID variant is driving the current wave in China?
The COVID variant omicron emerged in late 2021 and it has rapidly evolved into multiple subvariants.
According to health officials, Chinese cities are currently hit by highly transmissible omicron strain mainly BF.7, which is the main variant spreading in Beijing, and is contributing to a wider surge of Covid infections in China.
BF.7, short for BA.5.2.1.7, is a sub-lineage of the omicron variant BA.5.
According to reports emerging from China, BF.7 has the strongest infection ability out of the omicron subvariants in the country, being quicker to transmit than other variants, having a shorter incubation period, and with greater capacity to infect people who have had a previous COVID infection, or been vaccinated, or both.
BF.7 is believed to have an R0, or basic reproduction number, of 10 to 18.6. This means an infected person will transmit the virus to an average of 10 to 18.6 other people. Research has shown omicron has an average R0 of 5.08.
This sub-lineage of Omicron has more mutations in its spike protein than its parent version, which makes it even more lethal for those who are fully vaccinated against the virus infection.
Second wave and third wave
After a tight fight for over two years, the world saw a dip in the cases, all thanks to the vaccines that helped bring down the cases rapidly. However, the dip didn’t continue for long.
Viruses are known for their ability to mutate and form new variants, and the COVID virus did the same. In the second wave, the virus that dominated most of the cases globally was the most dangerous of all – the Delta variant.
The next wave was carried out by another highly mutated version of COVID-19, called the Omicron variant.
And now, the researchers have stated that this Omicron variant has mutated further to give rise to more virulent sub-variants, which have the ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity. What is more concerning is that the new sub-variants are even capable of causing severe infection in those who have recovered from the disease recently.
BF.7 steady elsewhere in the world
BF.7 has been detected in several other countries around the world including India, the US, the UK and several European countries such as Belgium, Germany, France and Denmark.
Despite BF.7’s immune-evasive characteristics, and worrying signs about its growth in China, the variant seems to be remaining fairly steady elsewhere. For example, in the US it was estimated to account for 5.7 per cent of infections up to 10 December, down from 6.6 per cent the week prior.
So why the situation looks different in China? BF.7’s high R0 might be due in part to a low level of immunity in the Chinese population from previous infection, and possibly vaccination too.
With inputs from agencies
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