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Omicron and Delta show China needs to boost Covid-19 variant defence, top expert says
- Vaccination has brought herd immunity, but against the original Sars-CoV-2 strain, Zhong Nanshan points out
- The best vaccine is the one you can get, adviser to WHO chief says, as lab studies question efficacy of China’s widely administered inactivated shots
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China has built a certain level of herd immunity against Covid-19 but will need to boost its power to fight variants, the country’s top respiratory expert said.
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Addressing a forum in the southern city of Guangzhou on Thursday, Zhong Nanshan said China had fully inoculated 1.21 billion people, or 86 per cent of its population, and given booster doses to nearly a quarter.
“Theoretically speaking, China has met the standard of herd immunity, but it’s against the ‘wild type’ virus,” Zhong said, referring to the original strain of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
“Now with the Delta variant and even the Omicron variant, which are capable of causing community outbreaks, it is very likely that China still needs to strengthen vaccination,” he added, without elaborating on how this should be done.
He referred to a Delta outbreak in Guangzhou last summer – in which more than 200 people were sickened but there were no fatalities – as an example of how vaccination could protect against severe illness and death.
The outcomes showed “herd immunity had been reached to a certain degree”, said Zhong, a recipient of the Medal of the Republic – China’s highest state honour – for his role in fighting the Covid-19 epidemic.
Late last year, Zhong had laid down two conditions for life in China to return to post-pandemic normalcy – keeping case fatality rates at 0.1 per cent and the coronavirus’ reproduction number, or the average number of people infected by an infected individual, at 1.0 to 1.5.
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