Yesterday, the Mainland officially changed its prevention and control policy on the infection of the new coronavirus from “Class B and A control” to “B and B control” (the control model is equivalent to dengue fever, human infection with highly pathogenic avian influenza, etc.), and fully “switched” and canceled Nucleic acid testing and centralized quarantine at entry, the public is concerned regarding whether the Omicron XBB.1.5 variant virus strain, which is increasingly popular in foreign countries and has stronger immune escape capabilities, will be brought into the mainland and cause large-scale infections.
Wu Zunyou (pictured), chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, believes that the virus strains circulating at home and abroad all belong to the Omicron family, and “the risk of causing a new round of transmission immediately should not be too great.” Chen Cao, a researcher at the Institute of Viral Diseases of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also emphasized at the press conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council that only 16 local cases of XBB were found from August to December last year. After some people are infected with Omicron BA.5.2 and BF.7, they will develop cross-protective antibodies once morest the XBB series in a short period of time. Therefore, “XBB will not cause a large-scale local epidemic at this stage.”
There were 7,072 new local confirmed cases in the mainland the day before yesterday, with Guangxi accounting for the most with 2,046, followed by Guangdong with 1,837, Beijing and Shanghai with 303 and 8 respectively; 2 new deaths came from Guangdong and Yunnan respectively. Taiwan added 23,080 local confirmed cases and 36 deaths yesterday.
Originally published on AM730 https://www.am730.com.hk/China/Mainland people are worried regarding the switch to detonate the XBB epidemic-Wu Zunyou-The immediate risk is not expected to be large/356205?utm_source=yahoorss&utm_medium=referral