New warning for China: Covid deaths in the country could hit 10 lakh, says study

A recent study by researchers in Hong Kong stated that Covid-19 might cause the death of nearly 10 lakh (1 million) people in China as the administration quickly abandons pandemic curbs. The study titled, 'Modelling the adjustment of COVID-19 response and exit from dynamic zero-COVID in China' stated that, “surge of disease burden posed by reopening in December 2022-January 2023 would likely overload many local health systems across the country”

According to the study, which was co-authored by Gabriel Leung, the former dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, 684 people per million would perish in a nationwide reopening in the absence of a mass vaccination booster campaign and other measures to lessen the impact of the virus.

Based on Bloomberg calculations, that would result in approximately 964,400 deaths in China, which has a population of 1.41 billion people.

Leung's team played a significant role in foreseeing the severity of the outbreak in Hong Kong earlier in the year. According to a Financial Times report, members of his team were among a group of city experts who went to Beijing early last month to advise Chinese leaders about removing Covid restrictions across the board.

Through its "dynamic zero-COVID" policy, China has managed to contain COVID-19 outbreaks ever since the initial Wuhan outbreak. China has recently started to modify its COVID-19 response strategies, striking a balance between sustainability and cost-benefit, as evidenced by the announcement of the "20 measures" on November 11 and additional "10 measures" on December 7, 2022.

Following China's recent moves to reopen, the researchers examined various scenarios, including the 7 December announcement of 10 measures to roll back fundamental Covid Zero principles like mandatory testing and lockdowns.

“Our results suggest that local health systems across all provinces would be unable to cope with the surge of Covid-19 cases posed by reopening in December 2022–January 2023,” they wrote.

According to the report, a more orderly reopening could save lives. The total number of deaths could decrease by 26% if China postponed its reopening until January while also increasing vaccination rates and access to antiviral medications, the researchers wrote.

Fear of a new variant too

The report claims that the China' infection rate explosion could also result in new variants.

A high R rate reopening would "result in a large number of infections that could potentially accelerate mutation, selection, and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 viruses," the researchers wrote. The R rate is the basic reproduction number for the virus. The coronavirus responsible for Covid is SARS-CoV-2.

After the government stopped disclosing the number of new asymptomatic cases, it is no longer possible to calculate China's R rate. An outbreak of infections has already ravaged through businesses and overtaken hospitals, according to anecdotal evidence, which suggests the disease is spreading quickly.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert and a critic of China's reliance on lockdowns, said China risked unleashing a new wave of virus mutations on the world if it doesn't “mount and implement a proactive vaccination campaign."

“Whenever you have a large wave of transmissions of a virus, you give it ample opportunity to mutate," Fauci said Wednesday at an event organised by the Financial Times newspaper.

China has removed the majority of its internal restrictions since beginning to abandon its zero-tolerance policy just a week ago, abandoning the strict strategy used to eradicate the virus for the previous three years. The spread is so large that it has almost completely nullified official Covid statistics and overrun hospitals in the capital.

Disclaimer: The report was published Wednesday and is a preprint, meaning it hasn’t yet been certified by peer review.