According to researchers from Fudan University in Shanghai, China could witness a ‘tsunami’ of COVID cases, resulting in 1.6 million deaths, if the country abandons its long ‘zero COVID policy’.
The peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature found that the level of immunity induced by China’s March vaccination campaign would be “inadequate”. omicron wave of coronavirus Which will swallow up the intensive care capacity.
The study predicts that if the government lifts restrictions, the omicron version of COVID-19 could lead to 112.2 million symptomatic cases, 5.1 million hospitalizations and 1.6 million deaths, with the major wave occurring between May and July.
Shanghai reported 1,487 new infections on Tuesday, down from 3,014 on Monday. No case was found outside the quarantine. Officials have indicated they need three consecutive days of no community spread before they begin easing restrictions that have kept millions of people inside their homes for more than a month.
The research comes as World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on China to reconsider its zero-tolerance strategy, saying the approach no longer makes sense as the omicron variant spreads and the country’s economy weakens. suffers damage.
“We don’t think this is sustainable given the behavior of the virus and what we anticipate in the future,” Tedros said at a briefing on Tuesday.
President Xi Jinping clings to China’s strictures covid strategy, the tightening of pandemic restrictions in Shanghai and the expansion of large-scale testing in Beijing. Chinese authorities are pursuing the elusive goal of eliminating Covid-19 cases in the community despite the rising cost to the economy and opening up as much as the rest of the world.
The zero-Covid strategy – which relies on border restrictions, mandatory quarantines, and repeated mass testing to root out all chains of transmission – is leaving the country isolated as the rest of the world returns to normal. and lives with covid. The increasingly strict measures needed to quell the outbreak of more infectious strains are also affecting the world’s second-largest economy, with analysts saying the annual growth target for this year is unlikely to be hit.