Yasmina Kattou, edited by Yanis Darras 11:57 a.m., December 27, 2022
After several days of protests, China has decided to abandon its "zero covid" policy.
Only a few weeks later, the country experienced an unprecedented wave of Covid-19 contaminations.
If the Chinese situation should not impact Europeans, scientists are nevertheless monitoring its evolution, notes Professor Didier Pittet.
It was the last vestige of the "zero covid" policy, adopted by China.
The mandatory quarantine upon entering China will end on January 8.
Now, only a negative test within 48 hours will suffice.
A questioning decision, while the country is experiencing an epidemic of Covid-19 which is out of control, since the lifting of all restrictions a few weeks ago.
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A circulating virus
Because China is not spared by the Omicron variant, which is transmitted more quickly than the original strain.
But in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, the circulation of the virus creates many variants.
Nearly 130 have already been identified by Chinese scientists.
The fear: the appearance of a new, more virulent variant.
“Ultimately, if new variants developed, different from the families of variants known so far, then we could imagine the worst”, explains Professor Didier Pittet at the microphone of Europe 1.
As a direct consequence, "the neighboring countries which have not had the chance to have optimal vaccination coverage could suffer", judges the epidemiologist.
No risk... yet
If the situation does not present a danger for Europeans, in particular "because the populations are vaccinated with very good vaccines", scientists are nevertheless monitoring the evolution of the epidemic.
On the other hand, Didier Pittet is worried about unvaccinated people, in the event of the appearance of a new variant which would replace Omicron.
In France, between 4 and 6 million people have not yet received at least one dose of an anti-covid vaccine.