WHO is “extremely worried” about extreme COVID cases in China. A Repeat Of 2019 Covid?

WHO is “extremely worried” about extreme COVID cases in China. A Repeat Of 2019 Covid?

According to the head of the World Health Organization, the organization is “extremely concerned” about the rise in severe coronavirus disease cases in China following the country’s decision to essentially abandon its “zero COVID” policy. He also cautioned that China’s low vaccination rates could lead to a significant number of vulnerable people becoming sick.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a media briefing on Wednesday that further information is required about how bad COVID-19 is already in China “in an attempt to end up making an extensive threat evaluation of the circumstance on the surface,” especially when it comes to healthcare and skilled nursing facility unit enrollments.

According to Tedros, “WHO is extremely concerned about the growing situation in China with the rise in reports of severe sickness.” In spite of the fact that COVID mortality has decreased by more than 90% since its peak worldwide, he continued, there are still too many unknowns about the virus for experts to declare the pandemic to be gone.

Unchecked COVID-19 proliferation in China, according to some scientists, might lead to the creation of additional variations, which could undo global efforts to stop the epidemic. Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO emergency chief, stated that vaccination is the “exit strategy from omicron.”

Ryan claimed that the dramatic increase in cases in China was not only attributable to the relaxation of several of the nation’s stringent regulations and that it was impossible to halt the spread of omicron, the most contagious COVID-19 form to date.

He said that China’s immunization rates for adults over 60 fell well behind those of several other nations and that vaccines produced in China were only around 50% effective.

In a country with a population the size of China and so many vulnerable individuals, Ryan said, “That’s just not appropriate protection.” Although China has significantly improved its ability to immunize individuals in recent weeks, he continued, it is uncertain if this would be sufficient.

Despite the fact that Western-produced messenger RNA vaccines have been shown to be more effective than domestically-produced ones, China has so far refused to approve their use. Beijing did consent to the importation of a consignment of the BioNTech Pfizer vaccine for Germans residing in China.

The issue of whether or not enough vaccinations can be administered in the next week or two to truly lessen the impact of the second wave and the strain on the healthcare system is still up for debate, according to Ryan.

Like Tedros, he claimed that WHO lacked data on the scope of severe illness and hospitalization, but he added that nearly all of the nations affected by COVID-19 had struggled to provide such real-time information.

Ryan further argued that China’s definition of COVID deaths was overly restrictive because it only included those who had experienced respiratory failure.

Given the severity of the illness, Ryan noted that people who die from COVID experience breakdowns in a variety of (organ) systems. Therefore, the total number of deaths caused by COVID will be greatly underestimated if the respiratory failure is the only symptom of a COVID diagnosis.

People who pass away within 28 days of testing positive for the virus are considered to have perished from COVID, according to nations like Britain.

The issue of how to account for COVID deaths has plagued almost every nation on the planet, and official figures are thought to be significantly understated. More than treble the reported death toll of 6 million, WHO calculated there were approximately 15 million coronavirus fatalities worldwide in May. The most recent epidemic being monitored attentively is due to the following reasons:

Is 2019 happening again?

Despite the increased hospital occupancy, the Chinese government downplayed the severity of Covid-19 when it first appeared there in late 2019. The rest of the world was kept in the dark about the looming epidemic by China’s lack of transparency.

After three years, China is once more “not revealing” the full scope of the Covid-19 increase in the nation. And the planet has been affected by a pandemic. According to China’s National Health Commission (NHC), Covid deaths only include those who pass away from pneumonia and respiratory failure following exposure to the virus.

What’s going on right now in China?

Its zero-Covid strategy failed. The number of Covid-19 cases in China is at an all-time high, and sources indicate that the two official patient deaths are substantially underreported.

After employees of a Beijing cremation told international media that they were overrun with dead after China lifted most Covid regulations, police and security guards were stationed outside the facility. In the parking area of the Beijing Dongjiao Funeral Parlor, where vans delivering remains made a beeline on Monday, guards pushed reporters away. Several public hospitals’ mortuaries are completely packed.

Why the sudden increase in covid cases?

Now that limitations have been lifted suddenly, there are fears of an outbreak among a population that has not been well immunized and so has little resistance to disease.

China loosened limits in response to demonstrations against its zero-Covid policy. The majority of its inhabitants are thought to still be vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 because of its zero-Covid policy. Additionally, China prohibited the use of foreign vaccines since its own shots were viewed as inferior. Covid-19 is now a scarier specter in China as a result of the combo.

Why is everyone concerned?

The rapidly spreading Covid-19 outbreak in China may result in new virus variants. The State Department of the United States declares: “We want to see this outbreak in China treated. We know that any virus that escapes laboratory conditions has the potential to mutate and become a global threat.

The Omicron wave is still very recent in people’s recollections. The likelihood that a mutant with enhanced infectivity would develop is considerable because the most populous country in the world has relatively low levels of natural immunity and vaccinations are not known to prevent infections.

In India

With an increase in reported instances of Covid-19 in China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and the United States, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya assessed the global situation on Wednesday.

He gave the order to expand the entire genome monitoring program for positive case sample tracking variations through the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network.

The daily shipment of samples from all COVID-19-positive cases to INSACOG Genome Sequencing Laboratories (IGSLs) has been mandated for the states and UTs. At airports across the world, people arriving from China and other nations will be randomly selected for testing.