JN.1 Now Dominant COVID-19 Strain in China, Health Authorities Say

Commuters wear protective masks as they exit a train at a subway station during Monday rush hour in Beijing, China on April 13, 2020. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Chinese health authorities have said that JN.1 has become the main virus strain causing COVID-19 infections in China amid an ongoing pneumonia outbreak sweeping the country since September 2023.

Monitoring data show a slight increase in COVID-19 cases, with the Omicron JN.1 mutant strain now the dominant epidemic strain in the country, the National Health Commission said at a press briefing on Feb. 4.

With the increase in inter-regional travel and large gatherings related to the Chinese New Year that falls on Feb. 10, the spread of COVID-19 is expected to increase.

Health authorities also said acute respiratory disease has declined in the past three weeks. Among them, influenza showed a downward trend, but it’s still the main pathogen of current respiratory disease infections, while other respiratory diseases have eased.

Health officials anticipate that for most of the rest of February, multiple respiratory diseases will spread simultaneously.

Efforts by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to conceal the real data and true scale of the COVID-19 outbreak since late 2019 have undermined public trust concerning the pneumonia-like outbreak that has surged since September 2023; it’s suspected to be another wave of COVID-19 caused by a mutated viral strain.

Infections in Jiangsu Province

Dr. Shui, an attending physician at the Department of Comprehensive Internal Medicine at Jiaoxi Health Center in Jiaozhou City, posted a video on Feb. 3 on his social media account saying a new wave of COVID-19 infections may have begun last month.

In another video he posted on Feb. 3, Dr. Shui said the number of cases in Jiangsu Province surged to 5,000 in one day.

“The virus becomes more rampant in winter, many children are unfortunately infected, and the pediatric hospitals are overcrowded,” Dr. Shui said.

Mr. Wang, a villager in Huai’an in Jiangsu Province, told The Epoch Times that he lives in a very remote village where there are many people infected with the virus and that his two sisters are receiving IV treatments for it.

A distant relative of his, who was usually in good health, was placed on oxygen therapy after recently becoming ill; he died when he was taken off the oxygen.

Pulmonary Nodules

A comparison of workplace physical examination data before and after the COVID-19 pandemic found that 95 percent of people have developed pulmonary nodules (abnormal growths in the lung) since COVID-19 broke out three years ago, an insider in Jilin told The Epoch Times.

“There have been a lot of nodule cases found during the physical examination at the work unit, such as lymph node nodules, lung nodules, and thyroid nodules,” Sun Cheng (pseudonym) from Jilin City in Jilin Province told The Epoch Times.

“The work unit conducts physical examinations every year. There weren’t that many. But people with nodules are particularly common now. At least 95 percent of people are diagnosed with pulmonary nodules. This data is very accurate.”

People wait to see a doctor at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, the nation's largest hospital by bed count, in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, on Jan. 30, 2023. VCG/VCG via Getty Images

Chinese health experts estimate that 90 percent of Chinese people have been infected with COVID-19 over the past three years; the CCP mandated that the population be inoculated with locally made COVID-19 vaccines.

Judging by the physical examination reports, Mr. Sun said, “Comparing the physical examination data before 2019 with the physical examination data after people inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines, it shows that before 2019, people basically did not have nodules; now it is very common to have nodules.”

Because of COVID-19, about a quarter of patients reported that pulmonary nodules were found in chest CT examinations after they recovered from the illness, professor Mingqiang Kang, president of Putian University Affiliated Hospital and director of the Second Thoracic Surgery Department of Fujian Medical University Affiliated Union Hospital, told mainland Chinese media outlet Fujian Health News.

Patients in line for an emergency pre-check at the new pediatric building of Xinhua Hospital in Shanghai on Sept. 25, 2023. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Many people were found to have nodules in the lungs during physical examinations, including some “pure ground glass” pulmonary, some “mixed-density ground-glass” nodules, and some solid nodules, Dr. Yan Xiaoliang, head of the thoracic surgery medical group of the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, said in a video posted to social media on Feb. 6.

He warned that relevant studies have found that the malignant probability (lung cancer rate) of mixed-density ground-glass pulmonary nodules is about 63 percent. If they are all malignant nodules, solid nodules have the worst prognosis.

Mr. Sun noted that he was recently discharged from a hospital after becoming infected. He said many adults and children were visiting the hospital’s fever clinic and that there were also many people suffering from “white lung” symptoms, which are typical in severe COVID-19 infections.

Mr. Ma, who is in his 50s, from Heilongjiang Province in northeast China says he and his whole family have been infected with the virus recently, and he has heard that many people have fevers and colds. He noted that many people have died suddenly, including his two neighbors, who were in their 50s.

Fang Xiao, Xiong Bin, and Xia Song contributed to this report.