“The surge of coronavirus in China is not much of a concern for the Netherlands now”

From coronagolf roaming through China is probably not much of a concern for the Netherlands at the moment, says virologist Marion Koopmans. “Now it’s mostly a problem for China itself.” But China’s lack of openness about the virus is a point of concern, according to the virologist.

China released the company at a rapid pace a few weeks ago after the country long maintained a zero-covid policy. Since then, the number of infections appears to be rising rapidly, and images of full hospitals have been shared.

There is international fear that infected travelers from China could cause a faster spread. For example, Japan announced yesterday that the country is introducing restrictions on travelers from China; everyone is tested and infected people must be quarantined. Italy also announced similar rules today. There they also check all positive tests for the new corona variants.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health says there are currently no restrictions on Chinese travelers to the Netherlands. “But we can introduce measures if the RIVM says it’s necessary.”

Koopmans agrees with this approach. He points out that there is already a lot of circulation in Europe. “So screening Chinese travelers wouldn’t add much.”

What can be a problem is the emergence of new variants of the corona virus. “The risk is that if you have that much circulation, a variant that further escapes immunity can still be circulating,” says Koopmans.

But the emergence of new variants seems to be less than expected omikron: so far the variant doesn’t seem to reserve many surprises. Koopmans: “More than 600 subvariants have already been identified, and vaccination still protects against infection quite well, if you look at protection against serious disease.”

Still, keeping an eye out for the virus remains very important, Koopmans points out. By mapping new variants, a potentially dangerous variant is on the radar faster. And it is precisely this keeping an eye on things that is a problem: China gives little information on the situation in the country. “The lack of clarity about what exactly is happening is troubling,” says Koopmans.

Official data on the number of coronavirus patients in China has not been available for two weeks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). “In China at the moment we see that we are in the dark,” says Koopmans.

While Koopmans doesn’t advocate large-scale testing of all travelers from China, it’s a good idea, according to the virologist, if there is some form of monitoring. “But that’s actually not how it should be. China itself should ensure that proper monitoring is started and share that information like many other countries in the world. This is the step that is needed now.”

Field epidemiologist Amrish Baidjoe also advocates increased monitoring. WHO advice remains characterizing variants,” he says in NOS Radio 1 Newspaper. “Many countries have actually forgotten that, even in the Netherlands, it only happens sparingly.”

“And that’s actually very important, because first you see a variant, first we can act. If we don’t, we often don’t know until it’s too late. As we have seen so many times in this pandemic”.