China has endured a perfect storm
with respect to the COVID emergency in the Asian country with
cases surging amid scant protection from vaccines, Health
Minister Orazio Schillaci said Thursday after Italy became the
first European country to introduce mandatory virus tests for
people arriving from China.
Speaking during a Senate briefing on the Covid situation in
China, the minister said here had been "a paradoxical unicum,
with the images of megacities sending an iconic message on
unacceptable standards for a democracy.
Some four million cases had been reported at the end of
November, he said, adding that "there are few vaccinations in
China, a poor level of protection of the vaccines used, and few
doses."
Schillaci went on: "Omicron until recently circulated little
with low hybrid immunity.
"Then this autumn came the perfect storm".
He went on: "The first laboratory results show in China the
circulation of variants and subvariants already present in our
territory and this is the most reassuring thing."
Stressing that the information coming from the Asian country is
insufficient and unreliable, Schillaci said that there will be
constant monitoring amid fears of the emergence of a new variant
of the sarsCoV2 virus, "a variant that goes beyond Omicron", but
at the same time it is important "to avoid alarmist
interpretations".
"At the moment, the variants fuelling the cases in China are the
same ones that have already been circulating globally for some
time."
But Schillaci stressed that Italy would keep in touch with the
EU on developments and said the government was extending the use
of face masks in nursing homes until the end of April.
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