How China’s COVID Crisis Could Spawn a Disastrous Virus ‘Leap’
China’s COVID disaster is entering a critical phase. The BA.5.2 subvariant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is spreading essentially unchecked through a population of 1.4 billion people with weak COVID immunity. And as the virus is spreading, it’s also mutating—fast.
If the rest of the world’s experience with the same form of COVID is any indication, one of two things will happen in China in the coming weeks and months. The virus could settle down on a genetic level and produce a succession of subvariants closely related to BA.5.2—ones that the Chinese population’s slowly-expanding immunity should be able to handle. Or, the unrestrained transmission and runaway mutations will lead to a genetic breakthrough for SARS-CoV-2.
In that case, we might see the first new major variant since Omicron appeared more than a year ago.