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A police officer directs traffic at the closed ferry terminal in Dover, England. More than 30 countries and regions have now suspended travel with Britain because of a new strain of the coronavirus. Photo: AP

China on alert for new coronavirus strain but flights from Britain continue

  • Health chief reassures Chinese public that so far there has been no sign of mutated virus and calls for vigilance
  • Beijing holds off on British travel ban imposed by more than 30 countries
China is on high alert but has not suspended direct flights with Britain, where a new strain of the coronavirus has caused an explosion in Covid-19 outbreaks in recent weeks.

Speaking on national television on Monday night, Feng Zijian, deputy director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said the genome for the new strain had not been found in any of its tests on people, freight or goods entering the country.

Feng said Chinese scientists were paying close attention to British and European scientific organisations and reiterated the need to be vigilant against the risk of imported cases.

“We need to pay close attention to the transmission situation of this [new strain of the] virus in Europe and Britain, and also need to take our supervision of our protection measures to a higher level,” he said.

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Coronavirus: UK issues toughest Tier 4 Covid-19 restrictions, countries ban flights from Britain

Coronavirus: UK issues toughest Tier 4 Covid-19 restrictions, countries ban flights from Britain
More than 30 countries and regions, including Hong Kong, have suspended flights with Britain. China so far has not halted air travel between the two countries.

“We will assess the situation carefully and handle it properly in a science-based manner to ensure sound and orderly flow of people between China and other countries,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Monday, when asked about the British outbreaks.

The World Health Organization warned yesterday that the occurrence of the strain across Europe meant countries should “redouble” their efforts to control the virus.

The WHO also noted that preliminary evidence showed the new strain was more infectious than ones previously circulating, but said there was so far little evidence that it caused a more severe illness.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said over the weekend that the new strain – a mutation from the original virus – could be up to 70 per cent more infectious than previously identified strains.

Since it was first identified, the new strain has been reported in a growing number of countries, including Australia.

China has reported 81,909 Covid-19 cases and 4,634 deaths since the disease was first reported in the central China city of Wuhan last December, according to figures from the National Health Commission.

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Wuhan swimmers return to the Yangtze River for a winter plunge after Covid-19 lockdown

In recent months, the number of local cases has fallen to near zero, but concerns remain over imported cases. On Monday, the Commission reported just 15 new cases, 13 of them imported, and no deaths.

On Saturday, the Chinese embassy in the US announced tougher restrictions on travel between the two countries, calling the risk of imported cases “the prominent massive issue facing China’s anti-virus measures”.

Mike Ryan, WHO emergencies chief, told an online briefing on Monday that countries putting travel restrictions in place were showing “the highest amount of caution”.

“We have to find a balance. It’s very important to have transparency, it’s very important to tell the public the way it is, but it’s also important to get across that this is a normal part of virus evolution,” he said.

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Ryan said there was so far “zero evidence” that the new strain could evade vaccines or testing, or that it caused a more severe illness. “Science will find the answers for what we don’t know, [and] governments will take the necessary precautions,” he added.

Professor Leo Poon, head of the Division of Laboratory Sciences at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, said it was unclear whether the fast spread of the new strain was due to it being more easily transmissible, or whether it could be explained by a change in human behaviour.

“I think it is quite concerning because the virus has been spreading so fast all of a sudden,” he said. “But what triggered the spreading we don’t know. Maybe it’s due to the mutation, which maybe makes it more transmissible, or it could just be a change in human behaviour.”

Poon said he had seen images from Britain – which initially relaxed lockdown measures at the beginning of this month – and noticed that people did not appear to be following social distancing measures.

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He said there had been little evidence about what made the new strain more transmissible, and the idea that it was more easily passed on had been based on how quickly it spread in the south of England.

Asked whether the new strain would react differently to vaccines, Poon said he expected them to have some protective effect. “Whether it will go to 100 or 95 per cent, as predicted, we just don’t know yet.”

Poon said China’s SinoVac inactivated vaccines – which use a different technology to the mRNA products – may have more success than its competitors in producing a wider range of antibodies, but that it was too early to say whether these antibodies would be useful.

He said China’s efforts to control the virus, with its use of mandatory testing, big data and mobile apps had so far been aggressive but successful.

“We expect the virus to continue to mutate, so basically, we have to live with that. We should try our best to suppress the spreading in the near future so we can buy time for science to come up with new control strategies.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: China on high alert for new strain but flights from Britain continue to be allowed
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