Three years of pandemic and more than 15 million deaths have left very painful lessons for the world. One of the first was that the only way to fight the coronavirus without vaccines was through unrelenting lockdowns. Governments later learned that any return to normal required careful monitoring of incidence while the first doses began to immunize the population. A year ago, the Omicron variant hit the market, the most contagious virus in history, which has become something of a natural memory dose for hundreds of millions of people. The number of infections is so large that it cannot be counted, but this is already losing importance in view of the sharp reduction in severe cases due to the protection achieved. And now, just when they thought they had the whole agenda covered, Western countries are looking back at China, trying to interpret the little data available, and wondering whether they are facing one of the last ravages of the pandemic or are they in a crisis situation are High risk that may send them back to the starting box.
“There is concern about the development of infections in China and the difficulty of making a correct assessment of the situation given the little information that we currently have.” With these words, Health Minister Carolina Darias summed up the existing uncertainty this Friday. The Spanish government is the second European after Italy to impose border controls – negative diagnostic tests or vaccination certificates – on travelers from China, as have the United States and several Asian countries.
However, the measure is controversial. While various communities have asked Health to make it stricter about refusing Chinese vaccination certificates and testing all travelers due to the lower potency of the serums used in the country, most European countries are refusing to do so for now. “They are not necessary yet,” said Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauerbach. The reason given is the one that the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) also pointed out this Friday: the variants circulating in China are the same as those already in Europe and therefore pose “no threat” to the the population of the continent.
The first flight controlled by the government is scheduled to land in Madrid at 6 p.m. this Saturday. According to Health, “passengers from the Asian country can go through a documentary, visual and temperature check at the point of entry into Spain, in addition to undergoing a diagnostic test for active infection by SARS-CoV-2.”
“From an epidemiological point of view, when the spread of the virus is already high, as it is now, it doesn’t make much sense to reduce the number of cases coming into a country if the variants are going to be the same. The key is to be able to quickly identify when new forms of the virus are emerging, because then everything can change for you,” says Miguel Hernán, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University.
Warning of possible new mutations
The need to step up surveillance through genetic sequencing, the tests that allow detection of new variants of the virus, has been the most repeated message from the European Commission over the past two days. However, this should not necessarily involve testing new arrivals from China, but is based on the systematic screening of a sample of positive cases found in a given area. Juan Carlos Galán, Head of Virology at the Ramón y Cajal Hospital in Madrid, confirms that according to the latest tests carried out, “nothing indicates new mutations or [en que se haya incrementado el] Danger of vaccine outbreak.
Fears of new variants emerging have been sparked by some numbers that give an idea of the gargantuan wave of new infections China is suffering after restrictions are lifted. According to Bloomberg, which cites data managed by China’s health authorities, nearly 250 million people in the country were infected in the first three weeks of December, up 37 million in a single day on March 20.
“These are enormous numbers, and it is true that with more infections, the number of mutations increases and with it the risk of new variants emerging. But it’s also not that different from what happened in the United States and other countries where the virus was allowed to circulate without many restrictions,” says Quique Bassat, ICREA researcher at the ISGlobal Institute (Barcelona).
Pedro Gullón, Professor of Public Health at the University of Alcalá, adds: “It is never certain that there are very high transmissions anywhere in the world, due to the impact on local populations and the risk of new variants, but in a global one situation of the spread of the virus in the community, I am not entirely clear on the actual risk this poses.”
The experts agree that the alert situation should serve to encourage the administration of booster vaccinations among the Spanish population, which in recent weeks has been lagging behind in terms of the coverage initially achieved. According to data from the Ministry of Health, published this Friday, 73% of the population over 80 years old have already received the fourth puncture, a percentage that drops to 62% for those aged 70-79 and 41% for those aged 60 -year-olds. . This second dose is updated to protect against the Omicron variant in addition to the original form of the virus.
In any case, the experts are of the opinion that the epidemiological situation in Spain should not change too much in the coming weeks, even with the coverage that has already been achieved, if no new variants appear. As Darias emphasized on Friday, the situation of new cases in the monitored population (over 60 years old) is “stable and even slightly decreasing”.
“What accelerated events was the abrupt end to the restrictions applied by China, but it was something that was definitely going to happen sooner or later. Omicron is so contagious that once it’s invaded a country, you can’t stop it without virtually total containment. What China has really failed to do well is achieve adequate immunization coverage for its population. This now triggers the risk of severe cases and deaths. Spain and the developed countries are not in this situation,” defends Miguel Hernán.
Only 69.8% of those over 60 in China have received the booster dose of the vaccine, a percentage that drops to 42.4% for those over 80. In addition, the two serums used in the country, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have proven to be less effective than those used in Western countries or in Russia.
The need to resort to permanent local lockdowns, due to the constant outbreaks caused by the high contagiousness of the Omicron variant, and the obligation to subject the population to practically daily PCR tests is one of the reasons that caused the long-term Explain public fatigue. a month ago the incidents that prompted the Chinese authorities to suddenly lift the restrictions.
It is an example, as well as the small reach that has been achieved, of the complex relationship between science and politics that ultimately led to the weakening of the response to the pandemic in countries like China, according to Fernando García Benavides, professor of public health at the University of Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). . “When a country allows free public debate, this usually leads to a change and improvement in the measures taken, leading to undesirable results. In a democracy, this is a gradual process that institutions can adequately articulate. China, on the other hand, was unable to do this. This prevented them from making changes spontaneously and they ended up applying them when the situation was already unsustainable, with fluctuations that in turn caused other problems,” concludes this researcher.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits