Vaccines against the mutant strains of COVID-19 should be approved for use as soon as possible, said Gao Fu, former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in response to the public's concerns about the epidemic situation in China.
China's National Health Commission (NHC) announced on January 14 a total of 59,938 COVID-19-related deaths between December 8, 2022 and January 12 this year.
Considering the risk of local infections of Omicron XBB and its subvariants, and the Spring Festival travel rush involving over 2 billion travelers, the largest in scale over the past three years, the peak of infection may appear in some rural areas due to the return of the villagers, said Gao in an exclusive interview with China Newsweek.
Gao predicted the infection peak may happen between February and March while the peak of severe cases are expected to reach early February. He advised those who have not been inoculated with boosters should get vaccinated as soon as possible.