After zero-Covid: what now for China following massive wave of infection?

By last month, about 58 per cent of China’s population had received one booster shot

But daily jabs tally has fallen to around 96,000, down from 3.635 million in December

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China’s chief epidemiologist says immunity nationwide is high so there is little chance for another coronavirus wave to occur in the coming few months. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 12:41pm, 13 Feb 2023Updated: 2:38pm, 13 Feb 2023

A massive wave of infection that struck more than a billion people in China in around a month late last year after it abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid strategy has waned, with experts now expecting a succession of smaller, less severe waves.

But as vaccination momentum declines, some remain concerned about the susceptibility of elderly people to increasingly transmissible variants of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

Demand for treatment at Chinese fever clinics peaked on December 23 and remained at a low level late last month, according to official statistics, while the number of Covid-19 patients admitted to hospitals peaked on January 5 and had since declined consistently.

“Our nationwide immunity is now at a high level, so there is little chance for another wave to occur in the coming few months,” the chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Wu Zunyou, said on Thursday.

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He said the coronavirus had been mutating but there was a low possibility that new strains or subvariants would be more transmissible or deadly than the current ones.

The massive wave witnessed in China in December was dominated by the BA.5 and BF.7 Omicron subvariants that were prevalent in the rest of the world when China was still resorting to frequent lockdowns and mass testing.

After zero-Covid: what now for China following massive wave of infection?

By last month, about 58 per cent of China’s population had received one booster shot But daily jabs tally has fallen to around 96,000, down from 3.635 million in December

By last month, about 58 per cent of China’s population had received one booster shot

But daily jabs tally has fallen to around 96,000, down from 3.635 million in December