The Chinese government has implicitly acknowledged that the world’s most populous country is facing a new wave of Covid-19 disease caused by a mutation of an Omicron variant with the scientific code XBB.

A few days ago, Western media published estimates that a new wave of infections could affect up to 65 million people in a country where coronavirus vaccinations remain incomplete, as the population is vaccinated at best with the dubious effectiveness of Chinese vaccines.

According to Bloomberg, CNBC and CNN, citing a report at a biotechnology conference in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, this new wave will peak in the last week of June.

Chinese media, as usual, prefer to allay fears by saying that this is not a serious pandemic outbreak in China. They emphasize that such an outbreak due to the new variant was expected, noting that Chinese pharmaceutical companies are already preparing vaccines that will specifically target this variant of Omicron.

As reported at the Guangzhou conference, Beijing has already given its initial approval of two vaccines targeting different HBV mutations and is expected to approve more, implicitly acknowledging concerns about a new wave of infections.

While the current wave in China is no match for the “tsunami” of cases it experienced in December and January, when about 80% of China’s 1.4 billion people contracted the virus, the elderly and those with underlying health conditions are still under-vaccinated and exposed to high risk. severe illness, said Jin Dong-yan, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Hong Kong.

“The number of cases is lower now and so it’s good that hospitals can take better care of them,” he said.

In Washington, the State Department said it was reviewing the situation with allies, but declined to comment on whether new restrictions on travel to and from China were planned.

Source: Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN.