New coronavirus in/from China

[PS_RalphW]

Travellers from China now required to have a negative covid test before travelling to the uk. However, this is described as a purely political decision, as the absolute level of covid in China is probably no higher than is current in the uk, and border tests have not prevented transmission before. The high death rate is due to low vaccination and previous exposure rates in China, one estimate that the death toll is currently 9000 a day. Also, no evidence that the strains in China are different or more dangerous than our endemic ones. The Chinese official death rate is about 5 a day.

[Vortex2]

The Covid omicron XBB.1.5 variant is on the rise in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The strain, which is highly immune evasive and binds better to cells than other variants, has almost doubled in prevalence in the past week and now accounts for 41% of all new cases.

The CDC has warned that an increase in XBB and other variants of the virus could result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections

[BritDownUnder]

Travellers from China now required to have a negative covid test before travelling to the uk. However, this is described as a purely political decision, as the absolute level of covid in China is probably no higher than is current in the uk, and border tests have not prevented transmission before. The high death rate is due to low vaccination and previous exposure rates in China, one estimate that the death toll is currently 9000 a day. Also, no evidence that the strains in China are different or more dangerous than our endemic ones. The Chinese official death rate is about 5 a day.

Travellers TO China require exactly the same tests. It is therefore logical to reciprocate if nothing else. I would prefer to make them take tests on arrival as well to get a measure of the rate of infections over there and the variants of the virus. I would also suspect that the Chinese PCR tests are a bit suspect and probably fake. People producing positive tests should be deported or sent to an expensive quarantine facility.

[PS_RalphW]

I still don’t know the dominant strain of covid in China, but the next wave is taking off in the uk already, XB1.5 iirc. This was imported from good old US, so maybe we should be testing and deporting Americans, too. This strain looks likely to put yet more strain ion the NHS in the next few weeks, so avoid getting I’ll or having an accident.

[kenneal - lagger]

I can't see any reason to not test, return or ban people from ANY countries with high levels of any disease or new variant of an existing disease.

[Default0ptions]

“Blueprint for creating a 'SARS-CoV' virus with an altered spike protein in Wuhan was published in 2018, bombshell new records show”

“A newly-uncovered trove of documents detailing plans to create a Covid-like virus in China months before the pandemic make the 'lab leak almost certain', experts say.

The records - obtained now by FOIA requests - lay out a plan to 'engineer spike proteins' to infect human cells that would then be 'inserted into SARS-Covid backbones' at the infamous Wuhan virology lab from December 2018.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/arti ... teins.html

This may have been well intentioned research (really?) but … what a stupid thing to do!