No new Covid variants emerged during China's recent outbreak: Lancet study

Two known Omicron sub-variants rather than any new variants have chiefly been responsible for the recent COVID-19 surge in China, according to a study of cases in Beijing published in The Lancet Journal.

The analysis suggests Omicron sub-variants, BA.5.2 and BF.7 among the most dominant variants in Beijing during 2022 accounted for more than 90 per cent of local infections between November 14 and December 20, 2022.

The results represent a snapshot of the pandemic in China, due to the characteristics of Beijing's population and the circulation of highly transmissible COVID-19 strains there, the researchers said.

China is widely reported to have ended its zero-Covid strategy on December 7, 2022. Since the lifting of these strict COVID-19 control policies which included targeted lockdowns, mass testing and quarantine surging case numbers have raised concerns that new variants could emerge.

In the three years since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, the emergence of variant