Virus and fear surge in China: what’s happening and why?

The dominant virus strain in China is BF.7, a sub-variant of Omicron that has been in circulation for over a year now. There are over 500 Omicron sub-variants currently in circulation.

BF.7 is the name for the BA.5.2.1.7, which itself has evolved from the BA.5 sub-variant. BF.7 is not unique to China. It accounted for over 5 per cent of the cases in the US in October and over 7 per cent of the cases in the UK.

But the surge in China has nothing to do with the variant circulating there, according to virologist Dr Ekta Gupta.

“There is no scientific evidence to suggest that there is one particular variant that is driving the surge in China. Neither is there evidence to suggest that any new variant is the cause. If you look at the Gisaid data (a global database of Sars-CoV-2 genomes), nothing vastly different has been uploaded from the country,” virologist Dr Gupta said.

She said it was the large susceptible population that was the key driver of the surge.

“From what I can understand, the strict lockdowns in China meant that a huge proportion of the population did not get the infection."

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