Omicron response: China to wait, see and keep up tough zero-Covid rules, experts say
- Close watch to be kept on new coronavirus variant but it’s too early to make conclusions, Zhong Nanshan says
- The country already has strict border controls in place as part of its ongoing zero-Covid policy
The variant, called Omicron, has a large number of spike protein mutations and is the fifth variant to be given the designation.
“This mutant strain is very new. We’ll need to judge how harmful it is, how fast it will spread, whether it will make the disease more severe, and whether a vaccine needs to be developed against it,” state-owned Southern Daily quoted him as saying at a conference on Sunday.
“It’s too early to draw conclusions ... Prevention and control measures for people coming from South Africa need more attention.”
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also said China would wait and see, while maintaining its existing tough border controls.
“Globally, the pandemic is most serious mainly in Europe, and the prevalent strain this winter and next spring is Delta. Whether Omicron can develop into the dominant strain needs further close observation,” Wu said at Caijing magazine’s annual forecasts and strategies conference in Beijing.
“There will be no major impact on China at this time, and China’s current rapid response and dynamic clearance strategy is capable of dealing with all types of new coronavirus variants,” Zhang said.
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Other countries have gone ahead with stricter entry rules.
Israel, which has already recorded one case of the variant, was the first country to close its borders, imposing a blanket ban on all foreign entering the country from midnight Sunday local time. In a statement to parliament, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the ban, pending government approval, would last for 14 days.
The United States, Canada and Australia have also travel restrictions on travellers from southern Africa. The Philippines suspended flights from eight southern African countries, while Thailand banned travel for those countries and imposed quarantines on recent arrivals. The European Union has also announced plans to suspend flights from southern Africa.
“For China, the zero-tolerance policy and prevention of overseas importation are the easiest and most effective ways to control the outbreak,” Wu said.
“Without that, in China, there would have been 47.84 million infections and 950,000 deaths based on global pathogenicity and mortality rates.
“If China adopted a policy similar to that of European and American countries, where tourists are allowed to enter with vaccination and 72-hour negative reports, the epidemic would break out all over the country and could not be controlled, and the efforts of the past two years would be wasted.”