Coronavirus outbreak in China: Delta variant challenges zero infection strategy — and raises questions about vaccine efficacy

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The latest outbreak began two weeks ago in the eastern city of Nanjing, where nine airport cleaners were found infected during routine testing. Since then, the gathering has spread to at least 26 cities across China, including a tourist hot spot in southern Hunan Province and the capital, Beijing.

Chinese authorities responded quickly with mass testing, targeted lockdowns, widespread contact tracing, and quarantine of close contacts — a tried and tested formula that has helped them tame local unrest since March 2020.

In Nanjing, a city of 9.3 million, residents underwent three rounds of coronavirus tests in the space of two weeks. Apartment complexes with confirmed cases were closed, and cinemas, gyms, bars and libraries were closed. In Zhangjiajie, where a theater performance attended by thousands of people sparked fears of a super-spreading event linked to the Nanjing Cluster, all tourist destinations were closed and residents were prevented from leaving their compounds.

Restrictions have also been tightened in Beijing, which last week reported its first local infection in nearly six months. Since then, five domestic cases with a travel history to Zhangjiajie have been discovered. The city has barred people from medium or high risk areas from entry and suspended flights, trains and buses from places hit by Covid.

Huang Yanzhong, senior global health fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Chinese authorities are responding to the variable delta threat with the same rulebook used in previous outbreaks, but in a much stricter way — many cities have been placed under effective lockdowns.

“It shows the problem of diminishing returns from the current ‘zero tolerance’ approach,” he said.

Elsewhere in the world, countries with relatively high vaccination rates are increasingly choosing to tolerate some degree of transmission, as long as it does not translate into increases in hospitalizations and deaths. However, in China, the authorities seem bent on imposing severe restrictions despite administering more than 1.65 billion doses of domestic vaccine – an order of magnitude higher than the US in terms of doses administered per 100 people.

The rapid spread of the Nanjing group to cities across the country has raised concerns about the level of protection currently offered by Chinese vaccines against the delta variant.

On July 22, two days after the Nanjing cluster was first detected, a health expert in the city said the “vast majority” of those infected there had been vaccinated, with the exception of one person under 18. Airport staff, along with medical personnel and border control personnel, were among the first to be vaccinated in China.

Chinese authorities have not provided a full breakdown of the number of subsequent cases that have also been vaccinated.

Several other countries that have used Chinese vaccines have reported infections among vaccinated people. In June, Indonesian officials said more than 350 medical workers in the country had contracted Covid-19 despite being vaccinated with vaccines produced by China’s Sinovac Biotech.

Breakthroughs have also been reported among people who have been fully immunized with more effective vaccines, such as those made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. In a report released Friday, the US CDC found that about 74% of the 469 Massachusetts residents who were infected in July had been fully vaccinated — with the delta variant revealed as the main culprit.

Chinese experts have tried to reassure the public that Chinese vaccines are still effective against the delta variant.

On Saturday, Shao Yiming, an expert with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press conference that sudden infections are a “normal” phenomenon, while stressing that such cases are only a minority among vaccinated people worldwide. Feng Zijian, another Chinese health expert, added that while the level of immunity against the delta variant may be lower, current vaccines still provide good enough prophylaxis and protection.

But Huang, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the relatively low efficacy of Chinese vaccines against the delta variant would only prompt authorities to redouble their “zero tolerance” approach based on containment rather than the approved mitigation-based method. in another place.

“This means that China is probably still months away from opening its borders to the world,” Huang said.

It remains to be seen if repeated shutdowns and test drives can maintain public support in the long term. Tolerance for such measures could begin to wane if, as expected, the government maintains its hard-line approach beyond the Beijing Winter Olympics in February next year.

But some prominent Chinese public health experts have raised the possibility that China, like anywhere else in the world, will eventually need to learn to live with the coronavirus.

It may not be possible for existing vaccines to eliminate infection, and transmission may persist even after everyone is fully vaccinated, said Zhang Wenhong, an infectious disease expert at Shanghai’s Huashan Hospital.

“More and more people now believe that the epidemic will not end in a short period of time, and may not end in a long time,” he wrote on the Weibo website. He added that whatever path China takes in the future, it must ensure “its connection with the world, a return to normal life, and at the same time protecting citizens from fear of the virus.”

The fastest Asian man over 100 meters tall… ever

Chinese sprinter Su Bingtian made Olympic history Sunday night, becoming the first Asian athlete to line up in the men’s 100 meters final since Takayoshi Yoshioka at the 1932 Los Angeles Games.

The 31-year-old has arrived in Tokyo as an outsider, having been eliminated twice previously in the semi-finals in London and Rio.

But on an unusual night of high drama, which saw US medal winner Trayvon Bromell fail to qualify for the final, Su appeared to defy all expectations, as she crossed the finish line in the third semi-final in first place – and set a new Asian record. 9.83 seconds.

Time – the quickest of all the semi-finalists – put the 5 feet 8 inches (173 cm) Sue as the unexpected favorite heading into the Tokyo 2020 final, though, at night, that wasn’t the case for him. Su finished sixth in 9.98 seconds, while Italian Lamont Marcel Jacobs took the gold in 9.80 seconds.

On Weibo, China’s heavily censored Twitter-like platform, five of the top 10 trending topics on Sunday night pointed to Su’s race final, with great pride in his record-breaking achievement.

“Su Bingtian, you are a miracle for the entire Asian continent! The pride of all of Asia!” He said an important comment that got nearly 300,000 likes.

After the race, Su told Chinese state media that walking on the track fulfilled his Olympic dream.

“I ran out of energy in the semi-finals. Finishing the final in less than 10 seconds is not easy for me,” he added.

In fact, Su was the first Asian-born athlete to officially break the 10-second barrier, the traditional measure of a truly world-class runner. Only a select group of Asian athletes have achieved this feat since then.

For comparison, Sue’s semi-final time of 9.83 seconds was enough to win the Olympic gold in Barcelona in 1992 (9.96 seconds, Linford Christie); Sydney 2000 (9.87 seconds, Maurice Green); and Athens 2004 (9.85 seconds, Justin Gatlin). Usain Bolt holds the fastest time ever for 100 meters with 9.58 seconds at the World Championships in 2009. Bolt also holds the Olympic record with 9.63 seconds in London in 2012.

About Asia

On Sunday, state media reported that Myanmar’s military governor, Min Aung Hlaing, took over as prime minister in the newly formed caretaker government, six months after the military seized power from a civilian government. The United States, after a ban on adoptions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aimed at reducing the risk of rabies from entering the country, shuts down a reactor at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in southern China’s Guangdong Province due to damage to fuel rods, the company that operates the plant. . He said in a statement on Friday.

From China to the US: Let’s talk about Chinese IPOs

Chinese regulators have a message for their American counterparts: Let’s talk about it.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on Sunday called on Beijing and Washington to “strengthen communication” about how Chinese companies are regulated.

The commission said regulators from both countries should “appropriately address issues related to the supervision of Chinese-based companies that are listed in the United States, in order to form a stable political outlook and create a good regulatory environment.”

The statement came days after the Securities and Exchange Commission asked its employees to demand more disclosures from Chinese companies seeking to go public in the United States before they approved any plans to sell shares. Regulators are taking a more cautious stance when it comes to allowing Chinese companies to sell shares in America after the disastrous collapse of ride-sharing giant Didi, which faced crackdowns in China shortly after it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

China’s scrutiny of that company — authorities cited concerns about data and cyber security in a decision to ban Didi from app stores — is part of a broader push by the Chinese government to exercise more control over local tech giants, many of which have chosen to go. General in New York rather than Hong Kong or Shanghai.

“In light of recent developments in China…I have asked employees to seek certain disclosures from third-party issuers associated with China-based operators before declaring their registration data effective,” Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said in a statement Friday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is particularly interested in Chinese companies that are regulated as so-called variable interest entities (VIEs). Although headquartered in China, these companies are set up as an offshore shell company — often in tax-friendly places like the Cayman Islands — to issue stock.

In its statement on Sunday, the CSRC also sought to allay concerns about Beijing’s crackdown on Chinese companies, which has spooked investors and led last week to a massive sell-off in the stock market.

In its statement, it said that the CSRC “has always been open to companies’ options for listing their securities in international or domestic markets,” adding that it will communicate closely with other authorities in China to maintain transparency about policy affecting these companies.

Written by Laura He and Paul R. La Monica.

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