Amid winter Omicron unknowns, China to lean into ‘dynamic zero-Covid strategy’
- Senior health official says it’s not clear to what extent the new variant compromises vaccines
- But doses still prevent severe disease, hospitalisation and death, he says
George Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said vaccines continued to prevent severe disease, hospitalisation and death, but there were uncertainties.
“Omicron has the ability to evade immunity, like Beta [a previously identified variant], while being more transmissible like Delta,” he told China News Weekly, a state-run news magazine based in Beijing.
“Our vaccines still work [against Omicron] but their efficacy is greatly compromised. It is hard to tell to what extent,” he said.
“The virus mutates but it remains a coronavirus. Our existing vaccines can still protect against the virus to a certain extent.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that a new, more transmissible [variant] will emerge while we worry about Omicron.”
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