China could suffer more than a million deaths from the spread of COVID next year, according to a new projection.
The US-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) announced on Friday that Beijing’s decision to abruptly lift restrictions to combat its spread could facilitate a rapid spike and spread of the virus, resulting in widespread deaths.
A looming spike in infection could affect about a third of China’s population and cause about 322,000 deaths by April 1, IHME director Christopher Murray said, according to Reuters.
People wait in line at a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing center in Xinyang, China, this still image is obtained from social media video released on Dec. 15, 2022.
(Video obtained by REUTERS)
China previously had some of the toughest COVID restrictions in the world and said it has maintained a near-zero death rate since the global pandemic began in 2019. China lifted restrictions earlier this month following riots and public protests.
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A surge of more than a million deaths would far exceed China’s total death toll from the pandemic, as it officially reports only 5,235 fatalities in the past three years.
“Since the beginning of the Wuhan outbreak, China has barely reported any deaths. That’s why we looked to Hong Kong to get an idea of the infection fatality rate,” Murray said on Friday when IHME projections were released. .
For comparison, the US officially reports that it has over 1.1 million deaths from COVID, which included a period from December 2021 to January 2021 when it averaged thousands of deaths per day.
A resident receives a nasal spray vaccine as a second booster dose against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at a vaccination site in Beijing, China, December 16, 2022.
(cnsphoto via REUTERS)
In Europe, the UK reports just under 200,000 deaths; Italy reports that it has just over 180,000 dead; France and Germany each report about 160,000 dead; and Spain and Portugal report having 116,000 and 25,000 respectively, according to Worldometers.
“Nobody thought they were going to stick to zero-COVID until they did,” added Murray, who said COVID cases have ultimately spiked due to the Omicron variant being more contagious.
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The IHME model uses Chinese government-provided vaccination rates and population metrics to determine how the infection rate increases.
Another prediction model shows a similar number of fatalities, over a more accelerated time frame.
Lifting COVID restrictions and simultaneously reopening regions from December 2022 to January 2023 would result in 684 deaths per million people – or 964,000 deaths – during that period, according to a paper released Wednesday by the University of Hong Kong, Reuters reported.
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A health worker delivers fever medicine to a resident at a makeshift fever clinic set up inside a stadium during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Beijing, China, December 14, 2022.
(China Daily via REUTERS)
The document has not yet been peer-reviewed.
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Another prediction by researchers at the School of Public Health at Fudan University in Shanghai predicted that an unrestricted spread of the COVID wave would result in 1.55 million deaths in six months.
Beijing continues to encourage its population to be cautious and to stay vaccinated and boosted.
