Now that all measures have been lifted in China, we are faced with the question: how do we prevent the import of new and nasty variants? The Risk Management Group meets on Monday. Virologist Marc Van Ranst will be there and has a few ideas.
“I think our robustness is quite okay,” says virologist Marc Van Ranst, who meets on Monday with other members of the so-called Risk Management Group to advise policy on tourists from China. “Many of those Chinese will have covid, but good: today there are also many people with an infection. So I think the impact will be not too bad. In China it is a major disaster, but we must also have the intellectual honesty: three to four million deaths in China – which is now predicted – corresponds to the more than 30,000 deaths we have had in Belgium. So it is not that this is completely unseen.”
What precautions would you take?
“We have to keep an eye on the situation in China. But we should not believe the reports we get from that country. The death figures they report are certainly not accurate, so I wouldn’t trust their data on the variants that are circulating either. They may be honest about that, but it’s better to verify that yourself anyway. So I like to keep a blow to the arm. I’m not saying we should close things down, but I suggest we check the sanitary tanks of the flights from China anyway.”
To examine the feces for variants.
“Precisely. Just like people have been doing with sewage water for a long time. In a few American states they do that, who check sanitary tanks. It’s just a sample, because not everyone goes to the toilet during the flight. I don’t know if it always works, because some products to disinfect the toilet can make the test useless. But it hardly costs money and it seems responsible to me. If you also have passengers with a fever take an antigen test, then we keep an overview and we keep it safe.”
Is it true that there is a small chance that a variant is circulating in China that is dangerous for us? Because there is little pressure on the virus to evade immunity?
“I do believe that it is now. But I don’t underestimate the power of this outbreak in China. It is a densely populated country with a billion and a half inhabitants, and this wave is going to rage over that in one go. This offers the virus an enormous number of replication possibilities, and with every multiplication there is a chance of a mutation. The risk is small, but the population is very large, so it exists.”
Has China Vaccinated Badly?
“In any case, our immunity is much higher, so the virus has more reasons to do devious things here. We are better vaccinated and have experienced many more infections. But 90 percent of the Chinese are vaccinated. With our own vaccine, which is less good than our mRNA vaccines, but still: Sinovac is not a rubbish vaccine. If ours protect against serious illness for 90 percent, then Sinovac protects for 75 percent. The problem is that they have boosted less well.”
Have they continued to strive for Zero Covid for too long?
“Absolute. That strategy may have had a water chance against the original Wuhan variant, but against Omikron it is madness to even try – all those variants are far too contagious. What they should have done is a gradual exit strategy so they wouldn’t have had this huge explosion. They went from everything to nothing.”
Looking back at our course, before the vaccinations: didn’t we relax too quickly in 2020 and tighten up too late?
“Certainly. That first wave, there was little we could do about it, it was an earthquake. We could not have reduced the second wave in the autumn of to nothing either. But that second wave could certainly have been smaller. Do you remember how Prime Minister Jan Jambon in The seventh day said the house wasn’t on fire after all, and how a counter-movement arose that even denied that a second wave was coming?”
The counter-movement has become even stronger. Some are retroactively questioning our lockdowns.
“Without the lockdown, we could have experienced what is happening in China now, and what happened in northern Italy in 2020: hospitals and crematoriums being flooded. A long lockdown, such as in China, is inhumane and draconian. But a short lockdown does work. We cannot make a pandemic disappear, but we can modulate it a bit and ensure that the health structure continues to function.”
Looking back, shouldn’t we say that the outdoor measures were too strict? That the government should have allowed much more there?
“You know the video, from early 2020, with which Vlaams Belang still ridicules me? I am standing at the South Station in Brussels and say that it is completely pointless for people to wear a mouth mask in the open air. I still think so.”
You advised against them everywhere, in the beginning.
“They weren’t there either, so what could we do? It was also the period of ‘Stay in your room’.”
But that was strategic communication.
“In part, yes, I admit. And people think that’s bad for a scientist. But imagine the unrest that would have arisen if we had said that everyone had to wear a mouth mask. But outside it was never really necessary. Although I also understand the mayors who made it compulsory for a while in busy shopping streets.”
You were among the first here to draw attention to the fact that the virus airborne is, as it is called. Why did it take so long for the WHO to admit that?
“Inertia: The WHO is a big bureaucracy that moves slowly. There was also scientific doubt for the rest. Not with me, but there were counterarguments.”
According to your Leuven colleague virologist Piet Maes, it was immediately clear that the virus mainly spreads through the air.
“That is too easy to say in hindsight. The starting point according to the manuals was that it was not airborne. They also say that about the flu, and I’m not so sure about that either. I think we get a lot of infections in poorly ventilated indoor areas. Healthy indoor air: that’s where we need to go. The availability of clean water everywhere has made modern civilization possible, without disease and pestilence. We need that same revolution when it comes to clean air.”
Is Federal Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) aware of this?
“Yes. Belgium is now a pioneer in this field. I was one of the first to work with such a CO2– walked around a meter, and that has now found acceptance in our country.”
Is Flemish Minister of Education Ben Weyts (N-VA) already convinced of the importance of clean air?
“Uh, you should ask Ben Weyts that.”
He mentioned its effect on infections The Sunday ever “talk”.
“Well, he may soon say that ventilation in the schools was his idea. To be honest, I think he’s on board, but it’s hard to change your mind openly. Nor can we expect all schools to be in order in that area within two years. That is a long-term job, we have to accept that.”
According to your German colleague Christian Drosten, the pandemic is over and we are in the endemic phase. Agree? And explain again what that means, if you will.
“Christian is a friend and a very smart man, so I usually agree with him. But is the pandemic over? It’s hard to say now that there’s another knock like this in China. But here’s where a certain pattern starts to emerge, and then it becomes endemic: each wave becomes more predictable and creates less pressure on the health system. The virus is still there, but no longer disrupts normal life. Then it is endemic. Like the flu. But it will continue to kill every year, just like the flu.”
Will the flu hit hard this year?
“We are having a decent flu season. Perhaps a few more young people are infected, but we see no difference in the hospitals. There was no flu during the pandemic. The measures against covid helped better against flu than against covid. We also had less problems with other viruses.”
Speaking of burden, how do you deal with that unrelenting hatred on Twitter?
“It goes in phases. At first I was surprised, although I had already experienced it a bit in 2009, with the swine flu. Then you are left. Then comes a period when it starts to weigh. And then you get angry. The worst part is that some of the people who call me a mass murderer on Twitter actually believe I am. That is dangerous. Some are so deep in the myth trap that they believe that people are now dying in droves from the vaccine. And they think that the end is near for me, that prison beckons.”
Finally, perhaps an indiscreet question: have you…
“You don’t even have to ask them. The answer is: no, I haven’t been infected yet. In terms of colds, these were my best years ever.”