China, tens of millions infected

and a warm welcome to today's talk, Friday, December 30. Much concern about the covert situation in China. Should we suspend flights? Should we test everyone coming from China? Should we reintroduce the quarantine? I think the answer to all of those questions is no and I'll give you reasons for that as we go forward and hopefully in the end we'll have a pretty good handle on the situation in China as we think it is right now. all the World Health Organization data here, clearly we can't disagree with this, but we'll just note that the World Health Organization says there are 160,000 cases per week in China right now, with around 300 deaths . per week based on who they were Charts uh 28,493 new cases in the last 48 hours now of course infections are going to be much higher so roughly where do I think we are in China right now?

Well, this is based on some back guess work, but I think it's probably as good as what we have now, so we have 1.4 billion people in China that will be

infected

in the next six weeks. I think it's pretty fair to say and it's been going on for a It's been a couple of weeks now, so over an eight week period let's assume that the infections go on for an eight week period in China and this is not absurd at all because the R value is probably around 18 or 19 or even 20 in China right now. Realistic numbers, that would give us if all these people were

infected

over an eight-week period, that would give us 176 million infections per week or 25 million infections per day, so I think that's roughly where we are right now. .

China about 25 million new infections a day, the prevalence is really high in China right now in terms of deaths. The global meter gives the deaths approximately based on official Chinese data at just over five thousand, which is clearly nonsense, curiously for the World Health Organization. gives a much higher, somewhat more realistic figure, but what are the likely real death tolls in China at the moment? Well, I think the best estimate right now comes from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which is expecting 293,000 deaths in China by April 1, so that's going to be over the next three months, which is about a hundred thousand deaths a month, that's about 3,300 a day, so I suspect that at the moment if we use the criteria for covered deaths that we have used in In the West, roughly the same criteria according to our UK criteria or the criteria of the In the US, we're getting about 3,300 covert activity-related deaths per day in China right now, as far as we know, but of course it largely depends on the definitions we use. that is using definitions similar to those we have used in the West based on this population that gives us an infection mortality rate of 0.000207 a very low infection mortality rate, in reality if we consider the entire population of China, the another reason why I'm not as concerned about the China situation bothering us in the west as others seem to be. um the variation is now the main variant in China right now, it's this ba5217, now sometimes called bf7, not an accurate way to describe it, but it's actually a variant of ba5.

So as far as we know, the variant in China right now is ba5 and its derivatives and of course we've had huge amounts of ba5 in the West. We have good levels of natural immunity to ba5 because we have had huge Omicron waves. in western countries so the ba5 cases arriving at heathrow might cause a few more infections but not as many as we learn to live with the infection this is a sublineage of ba5 so it's basically the same Omicron variant which of course many cases in the west, although it is one of its many subvariants, now this is quite interesting.

Flight from Italy to Milan airport December 26 Mandatory testing for people arriving from China to Italy at the time of the first flight they tested. 38 on the flight tested positive a second flight 52 on the flight were positive and these were not infected on the flight the flight would not be long enough for them to test positive this represents the population in the cities of China so 38 to 52 of the population that got on the planes is of course not representative but it just shows how highly prevalent this is in China right now, but of course natural immunity is developing very quickly and there was no real way to Avoid this.

Now the positives in Italy are using it for genomic testing to find out more about the particular variants that are causing the problem in China at the moment and from what we know, these results are likely to show that they are derived from the Omicron ba5, so I'm much less worried if some new variant shows up that we've never heard of before, that would be a different matter, but I don't think there's any reason to suspect that they will at this point because even the mutations that are happening in China right now they are mutations as we understand them from the Omicron ba5 and the sublineages of that and that is less worrying, we are not seeing an alpha or a delta or anything like that as far as we know.

At the moment it is an Infectious Diseases Institute, it would be better if coordinated surveillance was taking place at European level, so once again Europe, as in the early stages of the pandemic, has not acted in unison in all member countries. It's not that we are doing particularly better in the UK, although I think by not testing in the UK we have made the right decision in not testing travelers from China, so Italy, US, India , Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, tests passengers from China. It is working in the states. I'm not too sure, let me know. Is the state testing everyone who comes to the country?

Maybe they are positive. Are they being quarantined? It would probably be around 50 of the people who arrive on most planes. um, I'm not really sure how that's working. UK is not testing, we have 26 full flights planned for January, half a million visitors a year, as long as they are derived from ba5, that doesn't really worry me too much, but there again. We're not testing so we won't know, but we'll get some pretty good indications from the Italian data, so fortunately the Italians are testing more transmissible immune evasive variants, so a lot of people have been infected, the more people are infected, the more mutations . we're going to have, but if it's just ba5 mutations, then your capacity for a mutation is limited, there is some immunological compromise, so yes, there are people who have been infected, yes, people who have been vaccinated will be reinfected to some extent , hopefully they will be. protected against serious illness and death.

I would certainly hope that would be the case now. What worries me in China is the continuous contact with potentials and animals. The reservoir continues to eat wild animals in China and sell them in wet markets. This has to stop this contact with wild animals. species, in addition to being unethical, is a real risk, it is not that we are absolutely clean in Western countries because our mass agriculture, where we raise

millions

of chickens and cows that are very genetically related, is a kind of recipe for disaster, really, and giving them antibiotics and stuff, even though that's bacterial, it's an ongoing problem, so I think humanity's relationship with animals really needs to change, and certainly this China situation with wild animals needs to be suppressed. and it has not done so because the virus can move from humans to animals and back from animals to humans this situation of reverse zoonosis this must be stopped so the Chinese authorities must take drastic measures against these wildlife wet markets , the so-called wet markets, that is a risk, but as far as we know at this time. has not resulted in any new variants that are significantly different from the Omicron ba5 evolution of the Oxford geneticists.

I'm not going to predict the direction, but there will be many opportunities for rapid change, well they certainly will because 1.4 people are going to be infected in a very short period of time, some of them are going to be immunocompromised, so the virus it will perpetuate in some people for weeks or even potentially a month or two in some people because they can't eradicate it, the partial immunity response will give that particular virus a lot of opportunities to mutate, so new variants will emerge, but as I say, I hope they are subvariants, the real big risk is that a new variant comes from animals, having now said that the Omicron variant is still a It's a bit of a mystery where that came from, it could have come from an immunocompromised person, but actually it could also having been a reverse mouse zoonosis anyway, the world is tremendously lucky that we now have Omicron and not Delta, nor Alpha, nor the original Wuhan. strain China can be grateful for that as they move into their second and potentially final wave, they're going to suddenly have, um Chinese Center for Disease Control, over 130 Omicron sublineages so far, it's not surprising, it's not particularly worrying that there has to be cross immunity in quite ex

tens

ive very widely um the fact that 1.4 billion people are suddenly exposed to the SARS coronavirus, which obviously creates conditions prone to the emergence of emerging variants evidently true I I I'm laughing a little because It just seems unbelievable, I just can't understand that 1.4 billion people were infected basically all at the same time.

It's serious, it's difficult to conceptualize, but it's true. University of Geneva. Any variant was more transmissible than the previous dominant ones. It definitely poses a threat as it can cause. It's true that it's a new wave, but at the moment I don't think there's any indication that it's going to be like that, so I'm not too worried at the moment. The way the Chinese are defining deaths is a little interesting. That was the answer. I forgot to show you that that's the institute of health metrics and evaluation screen, the new Chinese definition of death comes from here and I think I'll let you know the fact that we don't use one bit of Google.

Google translates here, but I think it's pretty accurate, so this is a professor, Professor Wang, China's national health commission is revising its guidelines according to this site to scientifically and objectively reflect the deaths caused by the pandemic. coronavirus, cynics might say it is massively reduced. the number of people who seem to be dying which, as we have said, we estimate is currently three to three and a half thousand per day according to Western standards, but in China they only say deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure. that also tested positive are not counted, it is not a good way to do it, it will give much lower numbers, which of course is what they want.

The Chinese are not counting the deaths of people who tested positive for covid and who have cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. death from blood clots or sepsis, but what they say in China and again this is from this site this site here what they say is that the main cause of death from Omicron infection is the underlying disease, that is true, that is absolutely true , so the people who are dying are mostly people with underlying diseases. I have a report here from China. Basically, just to summarize what we said about three thousand five hundred three to three thousand five hundred covered deaths per day in China right now, I think, and about Um 25 million infections per day, so 25 million new infections per day and around 3000 deaths per day in China right now is what we would expect but overall a very low infection mortality rate now this report is from northern China.

I know who is. but of course I can't tell you, so my writer says that I can confirm that there are signs on crematoriums in China, but to put this in perspective, one must consider that there are only three crematoriums here in a city of five million, so It is not necessary to increase deaths so much for them to be accused in crematoriums. It seems to me that a lot of Western media wants to make things in China seem worse than they really are, that three thousand people are dying. covert one day according to our rest criteria uh only two or three, of course, both Chinese criteria, but that doesn't make sense, so it's real, but it's not, it's not massive and in terms of percentages of people dying from the mortality rates from infection, is much less than It was when we suffered the Wuhan wave, the Alpha wave and the Delta wave, for example, mainly older people who died, since they predominantly live with their families, they inevitably become infected from members of the family, so many Chinese live in extended areas. networksrelatives older people younger people together uh the writer says this is a good thing, the good thing, the good thing is that families can be with their loved ones until the end and are available to go to funerals without obstacles, we have an obscene situation in this country.

Obscene situation in this country where people were dying and their relatives were not allowed to be at their bedside at that time. Absolutely ABS. Simply obscene situation. I told them before my dad was in the hospital for a couple of months and I couldn't. go watch it during the pandemic and yet the medical directors and the chief scientific office and the executive directors who oversaw that obscene program are still in their jobs, that's fine, there is no accountability for what they did to us, that's just a terrible situation and of course uh they can go to funerals uninhibited in China while we were restricted for long periods of time.

Remember those heartbreaking scenes of loved ones trying to say goodbye to dying relatives on a cell phone. It's just shameful that that's not happening in China. China and the numbers are much smaller also says my China writerWell, also keep in mind that only those who actually die covertly are recorded as coveted deaths, so yes, we know that according to our criteria, at this time they die between three and three and a half thousand people a day for one With a population of 1.4 billion, we must never forget that if a person dies of something else, covid and covid helped them, it is not considered a hidden death as it was in the West, so the Chinese are counting their deaths very, very differently than we did.

In the UK now the queue is at fever clinics, most of them are for paracetamol and ibuprofen, so there are these huge long signs that we see outside hospitals and things like that, but that's largely for get basic medications that people don't seem to stock at home. China now likes paracetamol and ibuprofen for fever. For the vast majority of people who have a fever, I think it is best not to take ibuprofen and paracetamol to lower the temperature because the temperature has risen for a specific reason to help the body. fight the virus, so most people are lining up to get a drug that in reality will probably do more harm than good, but that explains the long signs and people also want to get tested, there are also long lines to the tests, um, most of them. people use lateral flows that don't show positive for quite a few days and I agree, try not to treat Trina like a small place, it is huge and there is a lot of variation between regions, including different variants in different regions, but as we have said in mostly b85, so to sum up, China's zero coverage policy was absolutely ridiculous, it went on for too long, the vaccination rate in China is relatively high, Chinese vaccines are more effective than many Western media let you know They would make you believe that they protect against serious diseases. illnesses and deaths, the actual fully vaccinated population in China is actually 91 percent, but of course they are now developing natural immunity at a very high rate, but we probably still have 20 to 25 million new cases of new infections per day. in China right now, so I would have said I think I said 25 million new cases, yeah, 25 million 225,011 uh cases per day new cases around 3,000 deaths by Chinese criteria it's only about one death per day, of course. , which is quite ridiculous um they are going to develop natural immunity very quickly the peak of the pandemic in China or are they part of their epidemic part of the pandemic will probably be mid to late January by February the infection numbers will decrease dramatically We will develop quite Rapidly levels of immunity comparable to those in Western countries and the virus will become endemic.

They're the same as here, so it's not really how I'd like things to be, but they're pretty inevitable and not too worrying, at least in terms of global implications, although it's hastening the deaths of quite a few people, there's no doubt about it, so I'm not downplaying it in any way, but I don't expect it to bring big changes in Western countries, that's where we are with China, thanks for watching.