CHINESE DOCS ADMIT NEW COVID PATIENTS GET SICKER QUICKLY

As the delta variant of COVID-19 spreads in southeastern China, doctors say they are finding that the symptoms are different and more dangerous than those they saw when the initial version of the virus started spreading in late 2019 in Wuhan, Keith Bradsher reported for the New York Times.

Patients are becoming sicker, and their conditions are worsening much more quickly, doctors told state-run television Thursday and Friday. Four-fifths of symptomatic cases developed fevers, they said, although it was not clear how that compared with earlier cases.

The virus concentrations that are detected in their bodies climb to levels higher than previously seen and then decline only slowly, the doctors said.

Up to 12% of patients become severely or critically ill within three to four days of the onset of symptoms, said Guan Xiangdong, director of critical care medicine at Sun Yat-sen University in the city of Guangzhou, where the outbreak has been centered. In the past, the proportion had been 2% or 3%, although occasionally up to 10%, he said.

Doctors in Britain and Brazil have reported similar trends with the variants that circulated in those countries, but the severity of those variants has not yet been confirmed. The testimonies from China are the latest indication of the dangers posed by delta, which the World Health Organization last month labeled a “variant of concern.”

First identified this spring in India, where it was blamed for widespread suffering and death, delta has since become the dominant variant in Britain, where doctors suggest that it is more contagious and may infect some people who have received only one of two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Delta’s spread in southeastern China focuses more attention on the effectiveness of China’s self-made vaccines. Chinese authorities have not indicated how many of the new infections have occurred in people who had been vaccinated.

In some other countries where Chinese-made vaccines are in wide use, including the Seychelles and Mongolia, infections among vaccinated people are rising, although few patients have reportedly developed serious illnesses.

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