According to WHO, the global risk associated with the Omicron variant is assessed as “very high”.

As Countries around the world compete impose travel bans to prevent the spread of coronavirus variant OmicronChina remains calm on the outside – at least for now.

Despite two confirmed cases of severe mutation in Hong Kong, Chinese public health experts still express confidence in the country’s existing border control measures.

China’s response – or lack of it – is hardly surprising. Limits of the country’s borders already one of the strictest in the world, with most foreign visitors, from tourists to students, banned from entering mainland China.

Zhang Wenhong, an infectious disease expert in Shanghai and arguably China’s most trusted voice on Covid-19, said the new variant would “not have a major impact on China at this point”. .”

And at a conference in Guangzhou over the weekend, Zhong Nanshan, a leading respiratory disease expert and government adviser, said China had no plans to take any “major action” to deal with Omicron variation.

Meanwhile, in China’s state media, the prevailing mood is one clear example. As much of the world begins to reopen and learn to live with Covid, China has risen to the top and is increasingly isolated by comparison. That isolation is now being hailed as China’s only advantage in the fight against the new variant.

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