Liberated China, but at what cost? The Beijing government has decided to broadly review the health restrictions established to fight the Covid-19 epidemic in the country and lift its “covid zero” policy in early December. Since then, public and private hospitals, as well as crematoria, have been under pressure. And the situation is likely to get worse.
“It is the Omicron variant that is circulating. It is much more transmissible than the previous ones. We hope to have a faster explosion of cases,” Sylvie Briand, director of the department of diseases, pandemics and epidemics, explains to the BFMTV microphone. Whom.
“There are going to be a lot of patients, and this massive increase in patients can overload the health system,” he continues. “It is very important to monitor this situation.”
“The hospital system is under stress”
Especially since the Chinese population is “much less immune”, underlines Jean-Louis Teboul, head of the department of intensive medicine and resuscitation at the Bicêtre hospital (AP-HP).
“The hospital system is stressed. Many cases do not mean many deaths, but since there are many, many cases, even if Omicron is less severe, it occurs in a much less immune population than in Europe, ”he explains on the BFMTV set.
“In less immunized people, there can be significant damage,” warns Jean-Louis Teboul. “There will be many deaths.”
The risk of new variants
“When Omicron came to us, there was a very high level of immunity. This is not the case in China at all”, adds Dominique Costagliola, epidemiologist and research director of Inserm at Iplesp.
“It will probably do damage in China. (…) They have gone from one extreme to the other. And unfortunately, many Chinese will pay the price,” he said.
And this Chinese new wave could have repercussions in the West. “Every time there is transmission, there is an opportunity for a new variant to be transmitted,” warns the epidemiologist. “There is a risk that new variants will emerge,” he concludes.
Source: BFM TV
