New Covid-19 wave coming? China’s reopening puts rest of Asia on alert for fresh virus strains

Potential mutation of virus could be milder but more transmissible, experts say, urging Asian countries to guard against fresh respiratory viruses in winter

Asian countries unlikely to tighten curbs given hybrid immunity from vaccines and past infection waves, which reduces severity of illness, observers add

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Customers at the Market Street Hawker Centre. Singapore says it is “watching” whether China’s reopening could lead to mutations of the coronavirus. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 8:30am, 16 Dec 2022Updated: 11:54am, 16 Dec 2022

A recent explosion of coronavirus cases across China and an abrupt abandoning of its long-held zero-Covid strategy have prompted some in the public health fraternity to demand a clearer exit road map from the Chinese government.

But the policy U-turn – which came after a series of mass protests in China late last month – has also raised some eyebrows among governments in Asia.

Particularly, Singapore’s health minister Ong Ye Kung this week warned that China’s reopening could lead to mutations of the coronavirus, something the city state was “watching”.

“They’re taking very decisive steps to open up their economy and society. This [is] bound to drive up infections, which we are not so worried [about] because our resilience is high and we’ve gone through three waves this year,” he said.

“But the question is, with 1.3 billion people mostly uninfected, [when] the disease starts to spread, we are bound to get mutations.”

Ong’s concerns were not unfounded. Healthcare experts suggested a mutation was likely as cases surge in China but they were optimistic that a new variant, while more transmissible, would be less severe compared to its predecessors.

Asian governments, they said, needed to guard against fresh respiratory viruses that could emerge during the Chinese winter, and countries should be concerned if a new Covid-19 variant which could evade immunity appeared.