Crystal ball Covid gazing
Published Jan 3, 2023 12:05 am
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Dr. Raymund W. Lo
It’s that time when we wonder what the new year holds for us. Well, allow me to peer into my crystal ball to see what’s ahead of us in Covid matters.
Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that its experts would meet when it’s time to declare the Covid pandemic over. We are all sick and tired of all the lockdowns, masking, and distancing, for sure. We all wish it would just go away, don’t we?
But wait, there’s a new development that may lead the WHO to extend the health emergency, and that is China. After three years of lockdowns, mass testing and enforced isolation, massive protests erupted all over China demanding an end to these, even to the point of demanding Xi Jin Ping’s resignation and for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to go away. Xi and the CCP must have been scared out of their wits at such widespread unrest, and so caved in.
Next thing we knew, all restrictions were lifted; the Chinese people were free to go where they please sans lockdowns, PCR tests, and all. What happened next was straight out of Anthony Fauci’s worst nightmare. Covid cases skyrocketed nationwide, and hospitals started to get overwhelmed even as doctors and nurses themselves fell ill to Covid. Twitter is awash in videos of people lying in the grass outside provincial hospitals while it’s standing room only inside.
Fever medications are in short supply. Drug stores are out of pulse oximeters, and antigen tests disappeared from store shelves; ironic because these antigen tests that we are using here originated in China. I got information firsthand from my Shanghai friend who got Covid a few days ago. The only antigen test he did turned out negative, so I advised him to test again, but no, he didn’t have any more test kits.
Why is this concerning? China’s Zero Covid policy had limited the number of Covid cases in the last three years, so herd immunity is low. Add to that the fact that China’s Covid vaccines were shown to have low efficacy of 50 percent (A month after my second dose of Sinovac, my neutralizing antibody level was only 45 percent). Even if majority of the population were vaccinated, this situation is not reassuring once a very infectious variant comes along. And it did.
The Omicron variant BF.7 is now circulating in China. It is highly infectious, adept at evading immunity, though not causing a lot of severe disease. Coupled with low vaccine efficacy and low vaccine uptake in the elderly population, it is a sure recipe for massive outbreaks. Authorities in China have revised metrics for reporting Covid infections and deaths to make it appear that infections and deaths are low, but reports from the provinces belie the official stance. Funeral parlors are overwhelmed. People wait for days to have their loved ones cremated. World Health authorities predict a million Covid deaths a year for China.
The spread of Covid like wildfire in China is fueling fears that the unchecked outbreaks can lead to new mutations that will not only be more infectious but will also cause more severe disease. Just recently, China has announced that there will no longer be quarantine for inbound passengers and the Chinese will now be free to travel abroad, which will facilitate spread of whatever new Covid variants of concern (VOC) may develop in China to the rest of the world.
If that happens, we will be in for the long haul. A new VOC with enhanced infectiousness and causing more severe illness may spread around the world once more, like Delta did last year. (That will cause a repeat of the scenario where we saw long lines of people waiting for admission in overwhelmed hospitals and people dying while waiting for medical care.)
So, the WHO may not yet lift the state of global health emergency declared in 2020, with the China scenario still unfolding. What started in China has come full circle. It will have its hands full fighting Covid-19 while the rest of the world has come to terms with it through vaccinations and antiviral drugs.
Of note is that majority of African countries have vaccination rates of 50 percent or less. The fact that most of the African countries used China-made vaccines of low efficacy puts more pressure on virus evolution into new VOC.
While we are now better off with our Covid situation, and the predicted uptick in cases during this holiday season has not materialized, we are also seeing other respiratory infections on the rise- human rhinovirus/enterovirus, influenza, parainfluenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) on the rise, sometimes occurring simultaneously with Covid infections.
If I were you, I’d still keep my face mask on and keep my distance, thank you very much.
Dr. Raymund W. Lo
It’s that time when we wonder what the new year holds for us. Well, allow me to peer into my crystal ball to see what’s ahead of us in Covid matters.
Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that its experts would meet when it’s time to declare the Covid pandemic over. We are all sick and tired of all the lockdowns, masking, and distancing, for sure. We all wish it would just go away, don’t we?
But wait, there’s a new development that may lead the WHO to extend the health emergency, and that is China. After three years of lockdowns, mass testing and enforced isolation, massive protests erupted all over China demanding an end to these, even to the point of demanding Xi Jin Ping’s resignation and for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to go away. Xi and the CCP must have been scared out of their wits at such widespread unrest, and so caved in.
Next thing we knew, all restrictions were lifted; the Chinese people were free to go where they please sans lockdowns, PCR tests, and all. What happened next was straight out of Anthony Fauci’s worst nightmare. Covid cases skyrocketed nationwide, and hospitals started to get overwhelmed even as doctors and nurses themselves fell ill to Covid. Twitter is awash in videos of people lying in the grass outside provincial hospitals while it’s standing room only inside.
Fever medications are in short supply. Drug stores are out of pulse oximeters, and antigen tests disappeared from store shelves; ironic because these antigen tests that we are using here originated in China. I got information firsthand from my Shanghai friend who got Covid a few days ago. The only antigen test he did turned out negative, so I advised him to test again, but no, he didn’t have any more test kits.
Why is this concerning? China’s Zero Covid policy had limited the number of Covid cases in the last three years, so herd immunity is low. Add to that the fact that China’s Covid vaccines were shown to have low efficacy of 50 percent (A month after my second dose of Sinovac, my neutralizing antibody level was only 45 percent). Even if majority of the population were vaccinated, this situation is not reassuring once a very infectious variant comes along. And it did.
The Omicron variant BF.7 is now circulating in China. It is highly infectious, adept at evading immunity, though not causing a lot of severe disease. Coupled with low vaccine efficacy and low vaccine uptake in the elderly population, it is a sure recipe for massive outbreaks. Authorities in China have revised metrics for reporting Covid infections and deaths to make it appear that infections and deaths are low, but reports from the provinces belie the official stance. Funeral parlors are overwhelmed. People wait for days to have their loved ones cremated. World Health authorities predict a million Covid deaths a year for China.
The spread of Covid like wildfire in China is fueling fears that the unchecked outbreaks can lead to new mutations that will not only be more infectious but will also cause more severe disease. Just recently, China has announced that there will no longer be quarantine for inbound passengers and the Chinese will now be free to travel abroad, which will facilitate spread of whatever new Covid variants of concern (VOC) may develop in China to the rest of the world.
If that happens, we will be in for the long haul. A new VOC with enhanced infectiousness and causing more severe illness may spread around the world once more, like Delta did last year. (That will cause a repeat of the scenario where we saw long lines of people waiting for admission in overwhelmed hospitals and people dying while waiting for medical care.)
So, the WHO may not yet lift the state of global health emergency declared in 2020, with the China scenario still unfolding. What started in China has come full circle. It will have its hands full fighting Covid-19 while the rest of the world has come to terms with it through vaccinations and antiviral drugs.
Of note is that majority of African countries have vaccination rates of 50 percent or less. The fact that most of the African countries used China-made vaccines of low efficacy puts more pressure on virus evolution into new VOC.
While we are now better off with our Covid situation, and the predicted uptick in cases during this holiday season has not materialized, we are also seeing other respiratory infections on the rise- human rhinovirus/enterovirus, influenza, parainfluenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) on the rise, sometimes occurring simultaneously with Covid infections.
If I were you, I’d still keep my face mask on and keep my distance, thank you very much.