According to Dr Chris Murray, director of a health research center at the University of Washington in Seattle, a dangerous new Covid-19 variant is unlikely to be spread in China.
His remarks on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday come as US health officials warned earlier this week about the possibility of a new Covid variant emerging in China’s nationwide outbreak — and how Beijing’s lack of transparency could delay the detection of public health risks.
Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, noted that while there are likely billions of omicron infections worldwide this year, no new Covid variants have emerged, only omicron subvariants.
“That’s why I would put the risk as quite low that there is a dangerous new variant in China,” he said. He noted that a new variant would need “some very special characteristics” to emerge and replace omicron.
More than a year ago, the variant was discovered in South Africa. Omicron is far more contagious, but causes less severe disease, than when Covid first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China.
Unlike the rest of the world, China’s Covid outbreak this month is affecting 1.4 billion people, the majority of whom are being infected for the first time. Locals can only get vaccines made in their own country.
This month, Beijing abruptly relaxed many Covid-related movement restrictions. On Monday, authorities also announced the elimination of inbound quarantine beginning January 8, as well as the resumption of passport processing for Chinese citizens seeking to travel abroad for tourism purposes.
Following that, the United States, Japan, and a few other countries announced new Covid testing requirements for Chinese travellers this week.
