China: Coronavirus Could Be Changing, Experts Claim

China's medical experts warned on May 19 that COVID-19 may be mutating, given the disease's behavior changes in the northern region.

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According to Qiu Haibo, head of the Department of Critical Care Medicine in  Zhongda hospital, COVID positive patients during the new virus outbreak in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces show a different infection comportment in comparison to Wuhan initial cases.

Positive cases in northern China seem to incubate the virus for a longer-term, with milder symptoms, a new study found.​​​​​​. Wuhan's original cases had quicker and stronger symptoms in only two weeks.  Besides, experts detected heart, kidney, and gut damage in Wuhan patients, while northern affected ones showed lung damage.  

As Qiu explained, these differences could reveal pathogens are changing, which could be difficult to comprehend for testing, and control. “The longer period during which infected patients show no symptoms have created clusters of family infections,” the former director of the Chinese society of critical care medicine (Csccm) stated.

Chinese Health experts are analyzing if these changes respond to a virus mutation or a health protocol deviation. COVID mutations could cause not only new outbreaks but also treatment inaccuracy. Alongside the health risk, economies would be forced to reopen later than scheduled  Even so, there is no evidence that this virus change makes it more contagious.

“In theory, some changes in the genetic structure can lead to changes in the virus structure or how the virus behaves,” University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health director, Keiji Fukuda, said. “However, many mutations lead to no discernible changes at all,” he added.

So far, China registered 82,965 positive cases, 4,634 deaths, and 78,244 recoveries.