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Expert Warns China’s New Covid Outbreak Could Spread Around World

Expert Warns China’s New Covid Outbreak Could Spread Around World

China

Photo: A street scene in Beijing, March 16, 2022. The fast-spreading stealth omicron variant BA2 is testing China's zero-tolerance strategy. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Once again, China is fighting a major covid-19 outbreak. On March 14, Chinese authorities reported 1,337 locally transmitted virus cases across dozens of mainland cities. What’s fueling China’s biggest outbreak in two years is BA2, a subvariant of the virus also known as “stealth omicron.”

Stealth omicron is a new form of the omicron variant, and early research suggests it spreads faster than the original omicron, which itself spread faster than alpha and other variants, NPR reported.

As of March 5, BA.2 accounts for 11.6 percent of covid-19 cases in the U.S., the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday, March 8.

Mainland China has called for a city-wide covid-19 lockdown for affected areas. It has reinstated measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus in several cities such as diverting flights away from Shanghai, and partial lockdowns with schools closing or going to remote learning. 

READ MORE: Is Covid Really Over? BA.2 Variant Has Entered America’s Door, Called The Most Dangerous Variant Yet

China’s disruption could mean another major hit to the world’s supply chain, causing more shortages and price increases worldwide.

Most of the new cases in China and Hong Kong are BA2, a subvariant of omicron that is now the most dominant variant.

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The current outbreak in China is still early, “but the surge is near-vertical so far —and that bodes very poorly,” covid-19 researcher Dr. Eric Liang Feigl-Ding wrote in a blog for Medriva, a manufacturer of syringes and rapid self-test covid kits.

An epidemiologist, public health scientist and former researcher at Harvard Medical School, Feigl-Ding warned that the covid-19 pandemic is far from over.

Western European leaders have not expressed worry about BA2, but “they are wrong,” cautioned Feigl-Ding.

He tweeted, “I have a sinking feeling again—like when Wuhan tried to contain the initial 2020 outbreak. China’s latest epidemic could ripple across the world in dire ways. I hope I‘n wrong, but here is why I have a bad feeling again.”

He added, “this thread has more data and figures regarding my serious concern about China being on the cusp of a very dangerous surge and economic calamity if it loses control. Even if we aren’t China supporters, we have to see the dangers it holds for the world economy…”

Photo: A child wearing a mask rides her bicycle on March 16, 2022, in Beijing. A fast-spreading variant known as “stealth omicron” is testing China’s zero-tolerance strategy, which had kept the virus at bay since the deadly initial outbreak in the city of Wuhan in early 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)