New Covid-19 strain found in China

The Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s publication CCDC Weekly said the case was “the first imported (British) variant in China and poses a major potential threat to the prevention and control of COVID-19 in China.”

CCDC Weekly said the 23-year-old woman tested negative for Covid-19 two days before her flight to China. Subsequent sequence of her positive test revealed that it was different from a small outbreak of cases in Shanghai in November and the tribes of Wuhan, where Covid-19 was first found.

The patient’s case of Covid-19 was diagnosed as mild, the newspaper said, noting that several controls had been taken to isolate the woman and identify those who were sitting near her or handling her on the run.

The news of the spread of the new strain to China comes a year after disease control authorities in the central city of Wuhan issued an internal notice warning of the rise of pneumonia patients, detecting the name Covid-19. Although life in most of China is back to normal, the country has experienced new groups of the disease, while avoiding the strict lock-in of earlier this year.

Late Wednesday, China’s largest regulatory agency approved the massage use of a vaccine manufactured by a Beijing-based drug development unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., more commonly known as Sinopharm.

In a New Year’s speech on Thursday, President Xi Jinping attributed China’s national spirit in response to the outbreak, which according to official figures recorded nearly 96,000 cases and 4,782 deaths. “We have overcome the impact of the pandemic and have made great strides in coordinating prevention and control and economic and social development,” he said.

Reuters first reported the notice on the detection of the British tribe in China. The CCDC Weekly article, by authors affiliated with China’s leading disease prevention agencies, received little coverage in major Chinese state media.

This week, health officials said the new strain was first detected in the U.S. in a man in Colorado.

The strain was detected in the UK in September and by early December it was responsible for more than 60% of new cases in London, scientists there said. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed new closures on the country on December 19, citing its easier shipment, which has forced several other countries to suspend commercial flights to London.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on December 24 that China was following other countries to suspend flights from the United Kingdom.

Write to James T. Areddy by [email protected]