New COVID Model Predicts More Than 1-M Deaths In China

China's lifting of stringent COVID-19 restrictions could result in an explosion of cases and over a million deaths through 2023, new projections from the US-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) showed, Julie Steenhuysen and Deena Beasley reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Experts predict that lifting COVID restrictions and simultaneously reopening all provinces in December 2022 through January 2023 would result in 684 deaths per million people during that timeframe.

IHME’s projections stressed that cases in China would peak around April 1, when deaths would reach 322,000. About a third of China's population will have been infected by then, IHME Director Christopher Murray said. China's national health authority has not reported any official COVID deaths since the lifting of COVID restrictions.

The last official deaths were reported on Dec. 3. Total pandemic fatalities stand at 5,235. China lifted some of the world's toughest COVID restrictions in December after unprecedented public protests and is now experiencing a spike in infections, with fears COVID could sweep across its 1.4 billion population during next month's Lunar New Year holiday.

The independent modeling group at the University of Washington in Seattle, drew on provincial data and information from a recent Omicron outbreak in Hong Kong.

"China has since the original Wuhan outbreak barely reported any deaths. That is why we looked to Hong Kong to get an idea of the infection fatality rate," Murray said.

Other experts expect some 60% of China's population will eventually be infected, with a peak expected in January, hitting vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, the hardest.

Disease modelers at the University of Hong Kong predict that lifting COVID restrictions and simultaneously reopening all provinces in December 2022 through January 2023 would result in 684 deaths per million people during that timeframe, according to a paper released on Wednesday on the Medrxiv preprint server that has yet to undergo peer review.

Based on China's population of 1.41 billion, and without measures such as a mass vaccination booster campaign, that amounts to 964,400 deaths.

Another study published July 2022 in Nature Medicine by researchers at the School of Public Health at Fudan University in Shanghai predicted an Omicron wave absent restrictions would result in 1.55 million deaths over a six month period, and peak demand for intensive care units of 15.6 times higher than existing capacity.

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