National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) chief Dr N K Arora on Tuesday said it's important to keep a close vigil on China's Covid situation, but also said that there's no need to panic in India.
"We're hearing that there's widespread Covid infection in China. As far as India is concerned, India is extensively immunised with effective vaccines, especially the adult population. INSACOG data shows that almost all sub-variants of Omicron found everywhere in the world are found in India; there are not many sub-variants that aren't circulating here. Important to keep close vigil on China's situation, but no need to panic as situation is in control," Arora told ANI.
China's abrupt end to its zero-Covid policy has raised concerns of widespread infections among a vulnerable, undervaccinated population with little natural immunity that would overload the health system and result in up to 2 million deaths, or more, various research groups are reporting, reported Reuters on Tuesday. New analyses by various modelling groups predict the reopening could result in as many as 2.1 million deaths. As of Monday, China has officially reported 5,242 Covid-related deaths during the pandemic, a tiny fraction of its 1.4 billion population.
Zhou Jiatong, head of the Center for Disease Control in southwestern Guangxi region, said last month in a paper published by the Shanghai Journal of Preventive Medicine that mainland China faces more than 2 million deaths if it loosened Covid curbs in the same way Hong Kong did this year. Infections could rise to more than 233 million, his forecast showed.
In May, scientists in China and the United States estimated that China risks just over 1.5 million Covid deaths if it drops its tough zero-Covid policy without any safeguards such as ramping up vaccination and access to treatments, according to research published in Nature Medicine.
They forecast that peak demand on intensive care would be more than 15 times capacity, causing roughly 1.5 million deaths, based on worldwide data gathered about the variant's severity. However, the researchers, the lead authors among whom were from Fudan University in China, said the death toll could be reduced sharply if there was a focus on vaccination.
China could see 1.3 million to 2.1 million people die if it lifts its zero-Covid policy due to low vaccination and booster rates as well as a lack of hybrid immunity, British scientific information and analytics company Airfinity said in late November.
The company said it modelled its data on Hong Kong's BA.1 wave in February, which occurred after the city eased restrictions after two years.