Anecdotal information: one of my daughter’s classmates is from the PRC here on a student visa. Her entire family is apparently sick and her grandfather was admitted to the ICU - all this happened within the past 2 weeks.
I find it curious that things have changed this quickly in the PRC - they only started lifting constraints in the past 3 weeks or so. Personally, I think they are detecting the common cold or the flu and not a (duh duh duuuuuuuuh) Covid-19 variant.
Well, I frankly believe it. This is what happens when you live in an isolated bubble. Which is what China’s lockdowns were of sorts. So that means something like Covid would spread wildly out of control. Historically it is viruses that wiped out whole cities/towns due to lack of any natural immunity. Plus I think whatever their variants are, are most likely more lethal and more transmissible. That bubble (isolation) they created would cause the virus to mutate differently genetically, than the rest of the world.
So truth be told, we do not know if our own vaccines or those who obtained natural immunity will be protected from whatever variants are coming out of China today.