Expert: China Returns To Normal If COVID-19 Fatality Remains 0.1 Percent

Photo illustration (Joshua Fernandez/Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Respiratory system expert Prof Zhong Nanshan proposed two prerequisites for China if it wanted to return to normal from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The leading expert from China mentioned the two conditions, namely if the COVID-19 fatality rate in China fell to 0.1 percent and the reproductive base rate (R0) was between 1 and 1.5.

Until now, all Chinese citizens must be vaccinated in order to realize community immunity, prevention, control, and treatment must also be improved, Zhong said at the Vaccine Summit in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, Saturday, December 4.

He suggested that the current fatality rate of 1 percent should be lowered again to 0.1 percent. Similarly, R0 or the positive transmission rate must also be 1 to 1.5.

Until now as many as 1.125 billion Chinese citizens or about 79.76 percent of the population have received a complete dose of vaccine.

"The fatality rate for the Delta variant in Guangzhou and Nanjing this year is already zero, which is related to the high vaccination rate," he said.

Therefore, he urged the Chinese government to continue to increase vaccinations, especially for the elderly. In China, 96,312 million people have received booster vaccines.

Citing data from the Chinese Ministry of Health, Zhong said that the third dose of the vaccine could increase the protective effect of COVID-19 symptoms from 56 percent to 80 percent and reduce the likelihood of COVID-19 patients being hospitalized from 84 percent to 88 percent.

In addition, laboratory data also show that the self-protection effect of the combination of inactivated vaccine and protein sub-unit vaccine, combination of inactivated vaccine and mRNA vaccine, and combination of inactivated vaccine and adenovirus vaccine is very good.

"This shows that the third dose of vaccine is very effective," he said.

Regarding the outbreak of the Omicron variant, Zhong responded, "We are not afraid of Omicron because it has implemented a zero-case policy and strict policies on prevention and control."

Therefore, the SARS expert concluded that the best way to eradicate COVID-19 is prevention