No new variants of Covid-19 emerged in Beijing in the weeks after China ended its zero-Covid policy late last year, a new study said on Wednesday.
China saw an explosion of infections after starting to lift its strict pandemic measures from early December, sparking fears the world’s most populous country could become a fertile breeding ground for new, more transmissible or severe strains.
More than a dozen countries promptly imposed fresh restrictions on travellers from China, also citing a lack of transparency about the scale of the outbreak, sparking Beijing’s ire.
But the new study by Chinese researchers, which analysed 413 samples from Beijing sequenced between November 14 and December 20, said “there is no evidence that novel variants emerged” during that time.
Source: AFP
