What’s new: A prominent infectious disease expert said China’s post-reopening second Covid wave that’s currently sweeping through the country could peak in June, with around 65 million cases detected every week by the end of next month, official media reported.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, said at a forum Monday that he made the prediction based on a predictive modeling analysis. Zhong said this wave of infections was triggered by the omicron subvariant XBB, which is spreading rapidly in parts of the world, according to a report from Nanfang Daily, the official newspaper of the Guangdong provincial committee of Communist Party of China.
Covid cases began to surge in China in April and could reach 40 million per week by the end of May, he said in the report.
What’s more: At the forum, Zhong also called for vulnerable groups, such as people with underlying diseases and the elderly, to be vaccinated again, noting people’s immunity from their last infection has weakened and that even those who were previously infected could be re-infected as the virus mutates.
The expert said China will soon have two homegrown Covid vaccines available to tackle strains including XBB.
Covid cases surged in China after Beijing abandoned its “zero-Covid” policy late last year. The first wave after the reopening had waned as of early February. Last week, Zhong said about 85% of China’s 1.4 billion people have been infected with the virus, according to the official newspaper of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Bertrand Teo (bertrandteo@caixin.com)
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