One million Chinese could die from Covid-19 in the coming winter months as China ends its ‘zero cases’ policy, according to a model created by consulting firm Wigram Capital Advisors.
Chinese authorities are phasing out mass testing, quarantine in designated facilities for positive cases and direct contacts, and the use of contact tracing apps, in an accelerated reversal of the highly restrictive measures in place in China for the past three years.
However, lifting these restrictions risks an unprecedented ‘surge’ of cases this winter, quickly overburdening the country’s health system, according to forecasts prepared by Wigram Capital Advisors, a New Zealand-based advisory group. and which focuses on research on Asia. The group provided projection models to several governments in the region during the pandemic.
The same projection indicates China could record 20,000 deaths per day by mid-March. By the end of the same month, demand for intensive care units should be ten times greater than the country’s capacity, amounting to 70,000 hospital admissions per day.
With 1,400 million inhabitants, China is the most populous country in the world. The zero cases strategy means that the vast majority of the Chinese population has no natural immunity. Beijing has also refused to import messenger RNA vaccines, which are considered more effective than inoculations developed by local pharmaceutical companies Sinopharm and Sinovac.
The vaccination rate among the elderly, the most vulnerable group, also remains low. According to recently published official data, 86% of the Chinese over 60 years old received the full vaccination schedule, although the percentage decreases in the group over 80 years old (65.7%). Nationally, the proportion of elderly people over 80 who received the repeat dose is 40%.
The increase in cases in winter is expected to be exacerbated by the Lunar New Year holiday. The main celebration of Chinese families, equivalent to Christmas in Western countries, traditionally records the largest internal migration in the world, with hundreds of millions of Chinese returning to their home countries.
Models developed by researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai and released last May estimate that an uncontrolled outbreak of the Omicron variant in the country could lead to nearly 1.6 million deaths in the space of three months.
“The current official message in China is that reopening will be free of charge,” writes Rodney Jones, director of Wigram Capital Advisors. “The risk is that [Pequim] underestimate the work and costs the rest of the world has had to endure to live with the virus,” he emphasizes.
The Wigram models use data on vaccination and age, the effect of public health measures and the R0, the indicator that measures the average number of infections per person. The analysis is also based on the experiences of Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
For the Chinese people to achieve immunity, allowing the economy to function freely, 20% of the population, or 290 million people, would have to become infected.
In a more gradual and controlled reopening scenario, this level of immunity would be reached in August next year under the Wigram model. This would help limit hospitalizations and deaths by mid-2023.
During the summer wave, the daily peak of deaths would drop to half the number recorded in July 2023, or about 4,000.
“China has done nothing to prepare for this stage. [O líder chinês] Xi [Jinping] appears to be acting impulsively, in response to the protests, rather than as part of a well-thought-out political program,” Jones notes.
“It would be easier to have confidence in a reopening strategy if it happened as part of a careful political strategy, and not impulsively, without preparation,” he added.
Several Chinese cities were the scene of protests late last month against Covid-19’s “zero case” strategy, which calls for the blockade of neighborhoods or entire cities, continued mass testing, and the isolation of all positive cases and their immediate consequences. contacts in designated facilities, often in degrading conditions.
This policy has also kept the country’s borders virtually closed since March 2020.
Beijing responded by bolstering police presences in several of the country’s cities and arresting an unknown number of protesters, but also issued directives ending its strategy of “zero cases” of covid-19.
Source: DN
