No need to panic, scientist cautions as borders tighten to travellers from China

SA will adopt a wait-and-see approach before imposing Covid-19 travel restrictions on passengers arriving from China.

Reports of mortuaries overflowing have followed a spike of Covid-19 infections in the Asian country after it dropped stringent “zero-Covid-19” measures on December 7 to adopt a strategy of living with the virus. In response, nations such as Canada, Australia, the US, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Japan have reinstated travel requirements of a negative Covid-19 test or testing upon arrival from those who had visited China.

Department of health spokesperson Foster Mohale said: “There is no immediate plan to impose travel restrictions or special requirements on travellers from China and other parts of the world. However, we are monitoring the surge of cases in China.”

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases reported 117 new Covid-19 infections on January 1 with 47 cases in KwaZulu-Natal, 28 in Gauteng and 23 in the Western Cape.

The department’s response is shared by bioinformatics scientist Prof Tulio de Oliveira who said despite “fear the Covid-19 tsunami” will derail global intervention developed in the past two years, there is no need to panic.

In a series of tweets, De Oliveira, who helped lead the multidisciplinary team that discovered the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, which quickly became the dominant one of globally, said testing before boarding a plane and travel bans seem to be “ineffective, as shown with the restrictions to SA during Omicron”.

De Oliveira said the wave of Covid-19 infections in China seems to be “enormous, some of the epidemiological modelling and news point to millions of daily infections and up to 9,000 daily deaths”.

The China wave, based on limited data, is dominated by two sub-lineages of Omicron, BA.5 (BA.5.2 and BF.7). “To me, the reason of low severity of Omicron BA.5  is because it’s spread in a background of very high population immunity (vaccination and previous infections) and better clinical knowledge of how to manage Covid-19. China has good vaccine coverage and knowledge on management.”

De Oliveira said the globe should try to support China and not isolate or discriminate against it while simultaneously increasing genomics surveillance in one’s own country. “One thing that this pandemic showed us is that nationalism, punishment and discrimination do not work.

“In summary, we should be alerted of the situation in China and support them to control [it]. We should also do our homework so, in case a new wave starts, it can be managed effectively. We are not in 2019 but end of 2022 and we have the tools [and] knowledge to manage the pandemic.”

Chinese state media have sought to reassure the public that the outbreak is under control and nearing its peak. Infections in the cities of Beijing, Guanzhou, Shanghai and Chongqing are close to ending, news outlet Caixin said on Sunday, citing researchers in the Chinese commercial hub.

But infections will peak in the urban regions of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai in the latter half of January, they added.

More than 80% of those living in southwestern Sichuan have been infected, the province’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has said.

However, Monday’s single new Covid-19 death — flat from the previous day — among China’s population of 1.4-billion does not match the experience of other countries after they have reopened. The official death toll of 5,250 since the pandemic began compares with more than 1-million in the US. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, a city of 7.4-million, has reported more than 11,000 deaths.

About 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from Covid-19, health data firm Airfinity said last week, while cumulative deaths since December 1 have probably reached 100,000, with infections at 18.6-million. Airfinity, which is based in Britain, expects China's Covid-19 cases to reach their first peak on January 13, with 3.7-million daily infections.

China has said it only counts deaths of Covid-19 patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as being related to the disease. The relatively low death count is also inconsistent with rising demand reported by funeral parlours in several cities.

Lack of information

Authorities around the world are imposing or considering curbs on travellers from China They cite a lack of information from China on variants and are concerned about a wave of infections. China, meanwhile, says it expects future mutations to be potentially more transmissible but less severe.

The US will impose mandatory Covid-19 tests on travellers from China beginning on January 5. All air passengers aged two and older will require a negative result from a test no more than two days before departure from China, Hong Kong or Macau. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said US citizens should also reconsider travel to China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The UK will require a pre-departure negative test from passengers from China as of January 5, the department of health said on Friday.

France will require travellers from China to provide a negative test result less than 48 hours before departure. From January 1, it has been carrying out random PCR tests upon arrival on some travellers coming from China, a government official told reporters. It has urged all 26 other EU member states to test Chinese travellers for Covid-19.

India has mandated a negative test report for travellers arriving from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Passengers from those countries will be quarantined if they show symptoms or test positive.

DispatchLIVE

Additional reporting by Reuters