Covid-19: Why Some Countries Like China are Reporting a Comeback and Where India Stands

The world is at yet another crossroad in navigating through the pandemic with fresh concerns over the spike in Covid-19 cases in some parts of Asia and Europe.

According to experts, the situation varies from place to place and country to country. The reasons for spike in cases are mostly the delayed arrival of Omicron, spread of Omicron’s sister variant BA.2 combined with the aggressive lifting of Covid restrictions, complacency and pandemic fatigue.

The fresh surge may not impact India, thanks to the strong immunity gained during the second wave. However, experts warn caution and continuous monitoring of local level epidemiology in India apart from continuous genomic sequencing to identify any new variants of interest and concerns.

News18.com de-clutters the latest on the comeback of Covid-19 and how India is placed.

Snapshot of Covid Surge, Globally

In the UK and Germany, BA.2, a variant of Omicron, is driving new case growth. BA.2 accounts for over 50% of cases. And cases are on the rise in the UK and China as well apart from other parts of Europe.

According to Andy Slavitt, former senior advisor to US President Joe Biden administration’s Covid response effort, while the cases in the US are still down, there are two things worth watching. “Only 10% of cases are BA.2 and since BA.2 spreads approximately 30% faster than Omicron, expect it to follow Europe.”

Eric Topol, another global health expert, blamed relaxed mitigation measures, BA.2’s higher transmission and waning of immunity as possible reasons behind the rise of Covid cases in Europe again.

“There’s no clear or consistent pattern to determine which (or all) of these factors are driving it; no new variants have been implicated,” he wrote on Twitter.

In China’s Shenzhen, health officials have warned that the BA.2 strain is “highly contagious, spreads quickly and has a high degree of concealment”.

What are the Reasons Behind the Surge?

According to Dr K Srinath Reddy, a public health expert and president of Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), every country at some point will “catch up with the virus” despite the adoption of “zero Covid” strategy.

For instance, China, even with negligent Covid-19 cases, has been announcing lockdowns.

“Now a mix of Delta and Omicron is at play in China. We need to understand that the zero-Covid strategy with long lockdowns doesn’t work and at some point, the virus will catch up with you.”

Europe, he explained, lifted all restrictions unlike India where restrictions are being lifted in a progressive manner.

“Australia earlier had low levels of vaccination in the first half of 2021. In the next half, they aggressively vaccinated majority of the population. Once vaccinated, now they have opened the country and witnessed infections but not as many deaths. Same trend is being spotted in Denmark,” Reddy said.

Denmark is also witnessing high level transmission of the virus, but not a higher level of sickness or deaths.

What Has Protected India So Far?

A combination of factors, including strong Delta wave and high coverage of vaccines, has made the Indian population resistant to the coronavirus, to an extent.

In fact, India witnessed the Delta wave much earlier than other countries. Hence, the population by now, as per experts, has survived multiple antigens of natural virus which works better than vaccines.

“The Delta wave gave us more broadband immunity than the vaccines which are directed only against the spike proteins,” Dr Reddy said, while adding that now, if a new variant emerges and is mild (chances of which are higher), it won’t be serious for India.

“As long as the number of illnesses remains low, there is no cause for concern.”

Samiran Panda, deputy director general, ICMR believes that other countries witnessing the surge doesn’t mean India will too. “Omicron caused the fourth wave in South Africa, but in India, it caused the third wave. Every country has a different epidemiological graph.”

However, the experts cautioned that a new variant, if virulent – chances of which are low considering the natural progression of virus makes it more infectious and less lethal – may cause concern.

“Meanwhile, the habit of wearing mask, maintaining social distance, avoiding crowded places and hand hygiene will protect us not only against any fresh outbreak but also against air pollution and tuberculosis among other things,” Panda says.

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