China COVID-19 New Outbreaks: Clinical Manifestations Suggest That The SARS-CoV-2 Is Changing
China COVID-19 New Outbreaks: Chinese authorities conservatively reported that 46 new COVID-19 cases have emerged over the past two weeks in two provinces covering the three cities of Shulan, Jilin City and Shengyang and lockdowns have been imposed on these cities with a population of about 90 million people affected. However more cities and provinces are expected to be under lockdowns as well soon as doctors are reporting of new emerging cases.
However health authorities and also physicians are witnessing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus manifest differently among individuals in its new cluster of cases in the north-east region compared to the original outbreak in Wuhan, suggesting that the virus may be changing in unknown ways or mutating and complicating efforts to stamp it out.
It has been observed that individuals found in the northern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang appear to carry the virus for a longer period of time and take longer to recover, as defined by the PCR NAT test.
On Tuesday (May19th), one of China's top critical care doctors, Dr Qiu Haibo warned the country in a rare state television interview about these new occurrences.
Interestingly, infected cases in the north-east also appear to be taking longer than the one to two weeks observed in Wuhan to develop symptoms after infection, and this delayed onset is making it harder for authorities to catch cases before they spread, said Dr Qiu, who is now in the northern region treating patients.
Dr Qiu said, "The longer period during which infected patients show no symptoms has created clusters of family infections.”
Medical researchers still do not fully understand if the novel coronavirus is changing in significant ways and the differences Chinese doctors are seeing could be due to the fact that they were able to observe patients more thoroughly and from an earlier stage than in Wuhan.
It was suggested that when the outbreak first exploded in the central Chinese city, the local healthcare system was so overwhelmed that only the most serious cases were being treated.
The north-east cluster is also far smaller than Hubei's outbreak, which ultimately sickened over 68,000 people.
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However the findings suggest that the remaining uncertainty over how the coronavirus manifests will hinder governments' efforts to curb its spread and re-open their battered economies. China has one of the most comprehensive virus detection and testing regimes in the world, and yet is still struggling to contain its new cluster.
Medical researchers worldwide are trying to ascertain if the SARS-CoV-2 corona virus is mutating in a significant way to become more contagious as it races through the human population, but early research suggesting this possibility has been criticized for being overblown.
It was reported that that docto
rs have also noticed patients in the north-east cluster seem to have damage mostly in their lungs, whereas patients in Wuhan suffered multi-organ damage across the heart, kidney and gut.
Among the north-east cluster, only 10 per cent have turned critical and 26 are hospitalized.
Meanwhile China is moving aggressively to stem the spread of the new cluster ahead of its annual political gathering in Beijing scheduled to start this week. As thousands of delegates stream into the capital to endorse the government's agenda, China's central leadership is determined to project stability and control.
Shockingly, the north-east provinces have ordered a return of lockdown measures, halting train services, closing schools and sealing off residential compounds, dismaying residents who had thought the worst was over.
Dr Wu Anhua, a senior infectious disease doctor told the public during an address on state television today that: "People should not assume the peak has passed or let down their guard. It's totally possible that the epidemic will last for a long time."
Across the country physicians are also reporting a variety of chronic medical conditions emerging rapidly from the population and the hospitals are once again beginning to witness crowds and overflowing situation but the state media is downplaying the situation and in some cases are not even reporting on the emerging situation.
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