Month: January 2023

BEIJING, Jan. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — With China loosening its COVID-19 restrictions, some experts have expressed concern that China’s relaxation of COVID-19 limitations will enhance the likelihood of the virus mutating.

“It is a worry,” said CNN, citing William Schaffner, professor at the Division of Infectious Diseases of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville City, Tennessee State, and medical director at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

While the risk of a dangerous new variant emerging in China is “quite low,” said Chris Murray, Seattle-based director of a health research center at the University of Washington, on a CNBC program.

Murray said that it has to have some “special characteristics” for a new variant to emerge and replace Omicron, adding that “it’s probably a small risk at this point.”

Seen from data, the GISAID, a public database based in Germany, released a statement on Friday that recent China’s genome sequence data indicates that “all closely resemble known globally circulating variants seen in different parts of the world between July and December,” when compared with the 14.4 million genomes in the database.

A total of 9 subvariants of Omicron are circulating in China, and no characteristics of genomic mutations have been found in these subvariants yet, Xu Wenbo, director of the National Institute for Viral Disease and Control (NIVDC) of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), said on Tuesday.

China’s efforts in monitoring mutations

Xu said that the country has formulated a work plan to monitor the novel coronavirus variant strains since it optimized COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

The work plan requires choosing three “sentinel hospitals,” set up for monitoring, controlling and treating epidemic and infectious diseases, in each province.

Each sentinel hospital will collect 15 samples in outpatient clinics and emergency departments, 10 severe cases and all fatal cases every week for genome sequencing and analysis, and upload data to the NIVDC, thus establishing a national genome database for the novel coronavirus, according to Xu.

Yang Xiaobing, director at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the local TV station in an interview that the sentinel hospitals in Wuhan city have collected 40 throat swab samplings each week from mid-December, doubling the previous number, to detect the virus.

All data showed that no other strains have been found circulating in the city from October, except the BA.5.2, according to Yang.

The country has also shared its data with the world. China has been uploading gene sequences to the WHO since the outbreak of the epidemic, so that other countries could develop diagnostic reagents and vaccines based on the data, said Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China CDC, on Thursday.

Further information has been shared on Friday. The National Health Commission (NHC) and China CDC held a video meeting with the WHO, and exchanged views on the current COVID-19 situation, treatment and vaccinations. Technical exchanges would be continued to help end the epidemic worldwide as soon as possible, according to the NHC.

China’s response to COVID-19 prevention and control is well founded

China has released multiple measures in the past three years to provide guidance for the prevention and control of the epidemic, including nine versions of the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for COVID-19, 20 optimized measures and new 10 measures. The country will manage COVID-19 with measures aimed at Class-B infectious diseases instead of the more serious Class-A ones from January 8, 2023.

Liang Wannian, head of the COVID-19 response expert panel under the NHC, said that China’s adjustment on the epidemic is based on the understanding of pathogens, the immune level of the population, the resistance capacity of the health system and public health intervention measures.

It doesn’t mean letting go of the virus, but to “allocate resources to the most important tasks of prevention, control and treatment,” said Liang.

China has made efforts to enhance the medical supplies needed, including therapeutic medicines, testing reagents, vaccines, medical masks and protective suits.

More than 3.4 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered till now, with over 90 percent of the population fully vaccinated, Li Bin, deputy head of the NHC, said at a press conference on December 27.

The country’s daily production capacity of antipyretic analgesic drugs ibuprofen and paracetamol has exceeded 200 million tablets, with daily output reaching 190 million, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Thursday, adding that the country’s output of antigen detection reagents has increased from 60 million per day in early December to 110 million per day.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-31/China-monitors-coronavirus-mutations-to-adjust-COVID-19-response-1gdlTInhRHq/index.html

BEIJING, Dec. 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — For more than a century, China has tirelessly pursued modernization — from “Revitalize China” to the “four modernizations” goal launched after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, referring to agriculture, industry, defense and science.

Now modernization is no longer simply a dream for the Chinese people. In 2022, China’s leadership unveiled its blueprint for building a modern socialist China in all respects featuring a unique Chinese path.

“An ambitious blueprint has been drawn for building a modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization, sounding a clarion call of the times for us forging ahead on a new journey,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his New Year address on Saturday.

Toward Chinese modernization

In October, Chinese modernization, a key term defining China’s journey to rejuvenation, was for the first time written into a report to the National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Chinese modernization has elements that are universal to all modernization processes but is characterized by features that are unique to the Chinese context.

President Xi has underscored the unique features of Chinese modernization: the modernization of a huge population, of common prosperity for all, of material and cultural-ethical advancement, of harmony between humanity and nature, and of peaceful development.

China is working to achieve modernization for more than 1.4 billion people, a number larger than the combined population of all developed countries in the world today.

With the steady growth of its own economy, China champions common prosperity to ensure that everyone receives a fair share of its economic success and to reduce inequality. According to the Blue Book of Common Prosperity, China’s index of common prosperity increased by 79.3 percent from 24.67 in 2013 to 44.23 in 2020.

While continuing to consolidate the material foundation for modernization and improve the material conditions for people’s well-being, China is striving to develop advanced socialist culture, foster strong ideals and convictions, and carry forward China’s cultural heritage. China now has 43 items on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, the highest number in the world.

Guided by the new development philosophy featuring innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, China in 2022 continued to be a leading growth engine for the world economy. The International Monetary Fund forecast that China’s economy would grow at 3.2 percent in 2022, aligning with the global projected pace.

As the Chinese leadership has pledged many times, the country has stayed committed to peaceful development. The Global Security Initiative launched in April is one example. It has already gained appreciation and support from over 70 countries.

With solid steps

The CPC aims to realize socialist modernization from 2020 through 2035, and build China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful from 2035 through the middle of this century.

The path to achieving the goals is already taking shape. With its people-centered philosophy of development, the country has built the world’s largest education, social security and healthcare systems.

Xi has called innovation the heart of China’s modernization drive. China’s pursuit of independence in scientific innovation is reflected in its various achievements, including the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, space exploration including lunar and Mars probes and the construction of China’s own space station, and the deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe. The country has also developed its own high-speed railway technologies, 5G communication technologies and artificial intelligence.

In the Global Innovation Index 2022 provided by the World Intellectual Property Organization, a UN specialized agency, China’s rank has risen to 11th among the 132 economies surveyed.

Guided by Xi’s vision of “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” China’s modernization drive also emphasizes harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. The country has cut its carbon emission intensity by 34.4 percent over the past 10 years, and pledged to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

Moreover, China reiterates that it will advance a broader agenda of opening up across more areas and with greater depth, follow the Chinese path to modernization, and share the nation’s development opportunities with the world. In the first 11 months of 2022, China’s trade in goods expanded 8.6 percent year on year to 38.34 trillion yuan ($5.5 trillion), according to the General Administration of Customs.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-31/New-journey-of-the-new-era-China-charts-course-for-modernization-1gcNT6SNh1C/index.html