Covid waves likely to hit China in every six months and infect millions

Researchers were not surprised to see the recent increase in COVID-19 cases in China as they stated that the country is likely to battle an infection cycle every six months since all the restrictions related to coronavirus have been removed and highly infectious variants remain dominant.

However, researchers have warned that rolling waves of infection have the risk of the emergence of new variants.

“Unfortunately, a new reality with this virus [is that] we will have repeated infections,” stated Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. “The fear is that this virus will produce a new variant that can compete with the current ones and is more severe," he added.

The current increase in the cases has been caused mainly because of subvariant Omicron called XBB.1.5, which is highly infectious and was first identified in India last August.

Around 65 million people to get infectedevery week: Expert

According to China's prominent respiratory physician Nanshan Zhong, around 65 million people could be infected by coronavirus every week by the end of June.

This is China's first major reinfection wave that has occurred since all the COVID-19 control measures were dropped by the central government in December and led to a widespread Omicron outbreak.

China's more than 90 per cent of the population has been vaccinated and at least 85 per cent of people have been infected in the outbreak that occurred in December, said Zhong.

However, immunity has been waning, and XBB can escape the protection that people are getting from vaccines and prior infections. Mokdad said that although no major rise in hospitalisations and deaths has been caused by the XBB, the increasing number of infections canput pressure on the healthcare system of China.

XBB has also triggered minor waves in other parts of the world, like Singapore and the United States.

“This is what we see everywhere, but with a large population such as China, it is more apparent,” Mokdad said.

Epidemiologist at Boston University in Massachusetts Kayoko Shioda said that previous surges in COVID-19 cases have shown that XBB is more transmissible compared to its earlier forms. “Once it enters the population, XBB spreads and becomes the predominant variant much quicker than other variants,” she said.

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Yunlong Cao, an immunologist at Peking University in Beijing said, "This time, the wave is spanning several months, owing to the differences in people’s immune backgrounds, such as antibody levels."

“The peak of COVID-19 waves will generally become flatter and more stretched out after each cycle, which is a pattern we see in countries like the US. People are still getting infected in the US, just not all at once. A flatter wave would also lessen the burden on healthcare systems," he added.

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