Several experts have warned that China should brace itself for repeated COVID infections from new Omicron sub-variants that are on their way. They revealed that the new strains will be more harmful than the current ones, which are creating havoc in the country.

According to the South China Morning Post, the dominant strains in China so far are the Omicron subvariants BA.5.2 and BF.7. A biochemist, Dr. Cao Yunlong from Peking University, told the state-run China News Service that XBB can enter the country to trigger a new round of large-scale infections that have been circulating in the US and Europe for the past two months.

He stated that, at present, there is the possibility that China will confront multiple waves of COVID infections as the Omicron variant keeps mutating. He went on to say that the country will most likely follow the same pattern of repeated infection that has been seen in other parts of the world.

Dr. Shan-Lu Liu, a virologist from The Ohio State University, stated that Omicron is much more transmissible, and its reinfection rate is expected to be significantly higher. Additionally, Airfinity, a London-based forecasting firm, predicted that COVID-19 infections will reach their first peak in China on January 13, with 3.7 million cases per day. They also predicted that there would be approximately 1.7 million deaths across China by the end of April 2023. 

(Source: https://www.daijiworld.com/news/newsDisplay?newsID=1035518 )