The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed alarm over the rapid detection of Covid cases in China and noted that the country’s hospitals are quickly becoming overcrowded. Despite Beijing officials’ claims that patient numbers are “relatively modest,” Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, told BBC on Wednesday that the intensive care units (ICU) have been busy. Despite the fact that no Covid deaths were recorded on Wednesday, there have been questions regarding the virus’s true impact. China has seen an increase in coronavirus cases ever since the strict Covid regulations were eased last week as a result of significant protests.
“In China, what’s been reported is relatively low numbers of cases in ICUs, but anecdotally ICUs are filling up,” Ryan was quoted as saying. “We’ve been saying this for weeks that this highly infectious virus was always going to be very hard to stop completely, with just public health and social measures.”
China has been closely monitoring the omicron subvariants circulating throughout the country
According to reports, the BF.7 sub-variant of the omicron is thought to be the primary cause of the current increase in Covid infections in China. In October, the United States and numerous European nations both favored the same variant.
China has been closely monitoring the omicron subvariants circulating throughout the country, according to Xu Wenbo, director of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, on December 20. In order to detect any new variants, he claimed that the government has set up a national Covid viral sequencing database, which will receive genetic sequences from three hospitals in each province each week.
“This will allow us to monitor in real-time how omicron subvariants are circulating in China and their makeup,” he said.