The chief epidemiologist at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today that the probability of the country experiencing “a new wave of Covid-19 cases” in the coming months is “negligible.”
Immunity levels among the population are “high”, Wu Zunyou said, adding that China “has just suffered a wave of infections”, from which “most people have already recovered”.
Compared to three years ago, the pathogenicity of the virus and its variants has “weakened”, said the expert, quoted by the official Global Times newspaper.
“We have more knowledge about the virus, more antivirals and more treatment experience,” Wu said.
After almost three years of implementing the ‘zero cases’ policy of Covid-19, which included the confinement of entire cities and mass tests, China lifted the restrictions in early December and on January 8 reduced the level of handling of the disease from category A – highest level of danger – to B.
The ‘Covid zero’ strategy managed to “prevent the large-scale spread of the original strain of the new coronavirus and its Delta variant, reducing the number of deaths and serious cases of the disease,” the expert said.
“In the future, another large-scale epidemic is less likely to emerge, thanks to optimization of control and prevention strategies,” he said.
The CDC said Thursday that the number of deaths from coronavirus infection in hospitals across the country has decreased 97.6% since the peak on January 4. On that date, 4,273 deaths were registered in clinics, a number that dropped to 102 on February 6, according to official data.
Source: TSF
