so-called "white lung" pneumonia heavily infecting 2 areas of China of

Chinese authorities imposed an extremely strict lockdown when most COVID-19 patients had mild or no symptoms but all of a sudden, they removed all the restrictions as the pandemic shifted into a rapid and severe phase. Hospitals in large cities like Beijiing and Wuhan have filled up. What Chinese people are calling “white lung” syndrome has been observed in a large number of infected people. Questions are being asked about whether this is a new COVID-19 variant, is the original strain coming back, or something else. “White Lung” has recently become the most searched phrase on China’s Internet, and many CT images showing “white lungs” are circulating on the nation’s social media. The white lung syndrome refers to the alveoli in the lungs being filled with exudative or inflammatory cells that block the passage of rays of a CT scan or X-ray and thus show up as white areas, explained Dr. Dong Yuhong, chief scientific officer and co-founder of a Swiss biotech company and a former senior medical scientific expert for antiviral drug development at Novartis Pharma in Switzerland. Fan Deng, a former CCTV host, shared about his father’s case on Chinese language social media. Before his father was taken to the hospital, everything seemed normal—no fever, no soreness and his appetite was also good. “He was just a little drowsy,” Fan said. It was because Fan noticed that his father’s blood oxygen level was only 88 percent—lower than the normal range of 95–100 percent—that he decided to take his father to a hospital on Dec. 20. A CT scan revealed that Fan’s father had a “big white region” in the lungs, indicating a serious case of pneumonia. Three days later Fan told his friends on WeChat that his father had passed away. Lin Bin (pseudonym), a female resident in Beijing, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 30 that many elderly people who developed “white lungs” had no symptoms in early stages of the disease. She had taken her father to Beijing’s 301 Hospital for the treatment of pneumonia due to COVID-19 a few days earlier, and she said she was shocked upon entering the hospital. “Beijing 301 Hospital is now overcrowded. The emergency room and intensive care unit (ICU) are full, and yellow bags of dead bodies can be seen in the corridors. All hospital beds in all departments are now being used to receive patients with lung infections, and a large number of elderly people have developed white lungs. Some of the elderly who had contracted the disease had almost no symptoms in the beginning but later became drowsy and were sent to the hospital for examination. They were found to have already developed white lungs by then,” Lin said. “White lung” is not unique to the elderly. Many cases shared on Chinese social media revealed that some young people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s have also developed the symptom. A social media blogger in Chongqing told The Epoch Times on Dec. 30 that a friend of his also developed white lung during a COVID-19 infection. “The symptom in the early stage was mild, and it was after he tested negative that he got a lung infection. The thing is he had no fever, even coughing was very light.” Chinese state media Global Times reported on Dec. 29 that Zhou Zhou (a pseudonym), a 12-year-old boy from Wuhan, had a cough but did not go to a hospital immediately because his parents were worried about cross-infection from other patients. His coughing didn’t ease up after a course of medicine over a week, and he began to vomit and experienced tightness in his chest.  His parents then took him to the hospital, and a CT scan showed that one side of his lung had become white. Luckily Zhou Zhou was able to make a recovery. The deputy director of the respiratory care unit of the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital of Tongji University, Zhang Li, told Shanghai-based media The Paper that the mortality rate of patients with severe white lung is over 40 percent. The white lung phenomenon has led to various speculations about the virus strains that are causing it. In the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in 2020 social media users commented about “white lung” infections in Wuhan. Therefore some people in China have asked if the original strain has reappeared. Under public pressure Jiao Yahui, director general of the Medical Department of the National Health Commission, told a press conference on Dec. 27 that the emergence of white lung has nothing to do with the original strain in Wuhan or vaccination, and that the prevailing strain in China is still Omicron. On the same day local officials in Beijing and Wuhan also denied that the original strain reappeared among Chinese patients. However given the CCP’s lies and lack of credibility, most social media users expressed their distrust of these official statements. Due to the huge population of newly infected people in China and reports of seriously ill patients overwhelming Chinese hospitals, many scientists have raised concerns about the possibility of a malignant variant of the virus re-emerging in China. “There will certainly be more omicron subvariants developing in China in the coming days, weeks and months, but what the world must anticipate in order to recognize it early and take rapid action is a completely new variant of concern,” Daniel Lucey, a fellow at the Infectious Diseases Society of America and professor at Dartmouth University’s Geisel School of Medicine, told Bloomberg. “It could be more contagious, more deadly, or evade drugs, vaccines and detection from existing diagnostics.” Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University, told The Associated Press that due to China’s large population and limited immunity the combination of the two factors “seems to be the setting in which we may see an explosion of a new variant.” Ray compared the virus to a boxer that “learns to evade the skills that you have and adapt to get around those.” Many countries have reintroduced COVID-19 test requirements for all travellers arriving from China, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan. North Korea, Communist China’s “little brother,” has gone a step further, declaring on the website of its China’s National Immigration Administration that, “Chinese citizens are temporarily banned from entry,” and that all those who recently visited China, including North Korean citizens, must be placed under 30 days of quarantine and observation. From The Epoch Times ……………………. ‘White lungs’ scare Chinese and their travel hosts Authorities abroad gird up for Covid policy relaxations’ complications that many in China also hadn’t foreseen by Jeff Pao December 30, 2022  A young woman in Shenzhen has serious pneumonia as she delayed medical treatments. Photo: screenshot, Weibo More places, including Taiwan and the United States, have reintroduced Covid test requirements for people coming from mainland China after the health department in Italy said about half of the newly-arrived Chinese travelers tested positive. Other countries such as the United Kingdom, the Philippines and South Korea said they were considering launching similar rules as they were worried that new Covid strains could have emerged amid China’s large-scale virus infections. Chinese medical experts said about 5% of those who sought treatment at hospitals and clinics had pneumonia; most of them could fully recover, but a few would die within days. Authorities warned that both elderly and young Covid patients could have serious pneumonia if they should fail to seek medical treatments in an early stage. Italy, the first European country to be hit hard by the pandemic in early 2020, said on December 24 that all Chinese travelers landing at the Milan airport would be required to have PCR tests. The country said on Wednesday that 97 of the total of 182 passengers on separate flights coming from Shanghai and Beijing on Sunday had tested positive for Covid-19. The infected, mostly asymptomatic, were then isolated. Italian health minister Orazio Schillaci said Covid antigenic swabs and related sequencing of the virus were now mandatory for all travelers coming from China and transiting through Italy. Schillaci urged the EU to follow suit. The European Union’s Health Security Committee on Thursday held an urgent meeting to discuss the Covid situation in China. But Bloomberg said European health officials called screenings and restrictions on travelers from China unjustified. The US said on Wednesday it would require all travelers from China to show negative Covid-19 test results before flying to the country. The tests can be either PCR or rapid. The new rules, effective from January 5, will cover those flying to the US from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, or through gateways in Seoul, Vancouver and Toronto. Japan, India and Taiwan had already imposed mandatory Covid-19 tests on travelers from China. North Korea reportedly has closed the border for Chinese travelers. Last Saturday, the National Health Commission announced the daily infection figure in China for the last time. It said the country had only 1,698 new Covid cases on December 23. But then a document issued by the National Administration of Disease Control and Prevention said about 248 million people, or 17.6% of the 1.4 billion population, had been infected between December 1 and 20. It said more than half of the people in Beijing and Sichuan province had tested positive. The document said China had so far finished genome sequencing on the samples of 1,100 Covid patients and identified 12 types of Omicron strains, including some common ones such as BA.5.2, BF.7 and BM.7. It said it had not found any new mutants. It said the number of daily infections in key cities would peak in late December and the number of serious cases would peak a week later. It said the virus would then spread to smaller cities and rural areas. On Monday, China said it would resume quarantine-free travel for all incoming travelers and allow more people to travel overseas from January 8. On the same day, state media started promoting the boast that Beijing had already passed the peak of the current epidemic wave with its shopping malls and tourist sites crowded by people. The Global Times said social media posts by tourist boards in a dozen countries including France, Thailand, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had welcomed Chinese tourists. Meanwhile, “white lungs” and “original strains” are now the top online keywords in China. Some netizens suspected that the “white lung” symptom, which refers to the white spots shown on the lungs in x-rays of some Covid patients suffering from acute respiratory distress, was caused by the Delta or original strains. But health officials stressed that the symptom was caused by Omicron.  A 12-year-old boy in Hunan has got “white lungs” after he tested positive for Covid-19. Photo: gmw.cn Chinese virologist Zhang Rongshan said some patients got “white lungs” as they contracted Gram positive and negative bacteria in hospitals or early care homes. However, Liu Chuntao, a doctor at West China Hospital, Sichuan University, said the serious pneumonia cases in his epidemic wave were mainly caused by viruses, not bacteria. Liu admitted that it was difficult to cure those with serious pneumonia as they had missed the chance to take antiviral drugs within the first 10 days after having symptoms. Citing the clinical data, he said that about 5% of people who sought treatment in hospitals and clinics had pneumonia. Sheng Jifang, a doctor from a hospital affiliated with Zhejiang University, said more pneumonia cases were reported as the base of the infected population grew. Sheng said some young people could have “white lungs” as their bodies had strong reactions to the coronavirus. A 12-year-old boy in Hunan had got “white lungs” after he tested positive for Covid for 10 days in a row, the Strait Metropolitan Post reported. He had a fever and coughing and stayed home during the period. Another 12-year-old boy in Wuhan in Hubei had also stayed home with coughing and vomiting for a week after he tested positive. He was then diagnosed with serious pneumonia with “white lungs.” A young woman in Shenzhen, who has serious pneumonia, said those with serious symptoms should go to hospitals immediately. She said she had been coughing and had experienced chest pain for many days. Liu Youning, a former director at the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, said the Omicron strains were less pathogenic as only one or two out of 10 serious patients would die, compared with 50% of those infected with the precious strains. While experts thus sought to minimize the danger, some netizens said this was not what they’d expected as they had been told by medical specialists that Omicron was like seasonal flu. https://asiatimes.com/2022/12/white-lungs-scare-chinese-and-their-travel-hosts/ …………..