2/21/2023 0 Comments Next olympics![]() Some 85% of the population have been fully vaccinated, and a large fraction have received a third dose.īut a highly vaccinated population is unlikely to be a barrier against Omicron’s spread. The heavy-handed response continues even though China has administered nearly 3 billion doses of vaccines. Credit: Carl Court/Getty Ineffective inactivated vaccines Officials wait to process arrivals for the Olympics at Beijing airport. That has kept daily cases in the country in the hundreds or fewer, rather than the hundreds of thousands seen in the past few weeks in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Throughout the pandemic, China’s international borders have effectively been closed, preventing almost anyone from getting in or out. In Xi’an in December, the government even banned all traffic and cancelled flights. Residents have had to make do with intermittent deliveries of food and medicines. Millions-strong cities have implemented strict lockdowns and introduced rounds of mass testing. Nevertheless, in response, China’s government pursued swift and severe measures to get case numbers down. In late November, daily cases of infections peaked at 361 - a marginal figure relative to the size of the country’s population. ![]() In the past few months, China has experienced its largest COVID-19 outbreak since April 2020. “It is getting harder and harder to justify the zero-COVID approach.” The costs of shutting borders outweigh the benefits, now that vaccines can reduce hospitalizations and deaths, he says. “You can’t stop the wind with your hand,” says Rafael Araos, a physician and epidemiologist at the University for Development in Santiago. “It is not the right time to reopen,” says Chen Tianmu, an epidemiologist at Xiamen University.īut other researchers argue that it will be near-impossible for China to keep the variant out. Researchers say that vaccines based on inactivated-virus technology - such as China’s widely used CoronaVac and Sinopharm vaccines - offer some protection against severe disease with Omicron, but will prevent few Omicron infections. “The Olympics is going to be a big test.”Įven though Omicron is tough to contain, its increased transmissibility and ability to evade vaccine-derived immunity have hardened support for China’s unwavering strategy among some scientists. Outbreaks might spill into the community and will be difficult to control, he says. “Omicron is going to create more of a challenge and lead to more disruptions than previous variants,” says Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong. The highly infectious variant has been detected in at least 14 provinces and cities including Tianjin and Beijing, and scientists fear that fresh outbreaks might occur after next week’s events. ![]() The approach - which was introduced by the central government early in the pandemic and has involved large-scale lockdowns, mass testing and international travel bans - has been under pressure since China’s first Omicron cases were reported in mid-December. Credit: Ma Jian/VCG via GettyĬhina’s stringent zero-COVID strategy is likely to face its toughest test yet in the next few weeks, as millions of people travel around the country for Chinese New Year, and the Winter Olympics begin in Beijing. Health-care workers conduct COVID-19 tests in Zhengzhou, central China. ![]()
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