Using the rear-view mirror to look forward

ABSTRACT

As the new year begins, one cannot help but recall the start of 2020, when the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in China and public health experts and scientists realized that a situation with possible major impact worldwide was emerging. At this time, there were many uncertainties about the virus itself, its abilities to spread and the disease it might cause. Much progress has been made since and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is much better understood and mitigated. Irrespectively, at the start of 2023 there are new challenges. Following the lifting of the stringent COVID-19 measures (zero-COVID strategy) in Sep 2022 in China, the country is experiencing a massive surge of cases while the new, highly transmissible Omicron variant sublineage XBB.1.5 continues to spread at a high pace in parts of the US. Public health experts are watching and analyzing the situation in both China and the US closely. Based on 564 sequences collected since Dec 1, 2022 from China and deposited by Jan 3, 2022 in the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) EpiCoV database, there are no clear signs of new variants circulating in the country.