Today, Tuesday, the World Health Organization revealed new data regarding the seriousness of the new variant of the emerging coronavirus (Covid-19), and confirmed that it does not see a "direct threat" to Europe from the rising wave of infections in China.
The organization's technical official, Maria Van Kerkhove, confirmed that the "XBB 5.1" mutant, called "Kraken", is "the most transmissible form of the Omicron mutant so far," explaining that "its danger is not yet clear."
CDC estimates show that the XBB 5.1 mutant constituted 18.3% of infections for the week ending December 31, 2022, and 27.6% of serial cases for the week ending January 7th.
In a related context, Hans Kluge, responsible for European countries in the organization, said that based on the information the organization received from China, "there was no threat," but more detailed and regular information from Beijing was needed to monitor the development of the situation.
The Associated Press quoted Kluge as saying that he understood the imposition of new measures by some countries on people coming from China.
"We recognize that a number of countries, based on the precautionary principle, implement some measures, but proportionate and non-discriminatory measures must be taken," he added.
China is fighting a nationwide outbreak of corona after easing measures to combat the virus and canceling the "zero corona" policy, which imposed strict restrictions, put controls on gatherings, and required quarantine.
And the global health official renewed his demand for China to share databases on the numbers of people infected and dead with the virus, and to make them available to the public, according to the same source.
South Korea, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, Morocco, Qatar, Canada, Greece, Malaysia, Finland and the Netherlands have reinstated measures requiring negative test results for people from China.