Analysts allowed 1 million deaths in China due to COVID

With the lifting of restrictions, the daily death rate in CHINA could rise to 20 thousand people by mid-March,The HEALTH care system is unable to cope with the number of hospitalizations.

In China, 1 million people could die in the coming months during the "winter wave" of the CORONAVIRUS pandemic if strict restrictions continue to be lifted. This follows from the modeling results of the macroeconomic advisory group Wigram Capital Advisors, which studies Asia and made models of the development of the situation for governments during the pandemic, writes the Financial Times.

The Chinese authorities have long supported a "zero tolerance" policy for covid-19 , which has led to severe restrictions. Following recent protests, Chinese officials have begun lifting parts of the restrictive system, including mass testing, electronic contact tracing and state quarantines.

The researchers are confident that such measures could provoke an unprecedented “winter wave” of new coronavirus diseases that the Chinese health system will not be able to cope with. With further easing of restrictions, daily deaths are projected to reach 20,000 by mid-March, with 70,000 daily hospitalizations, by the end of March, the need for intensive care units will exceed their capacity by ten times and peak.

During the summer surge in diseases, the daily number of deaths will decrease to 4 thousand people, the peak will be in July, the total number of hospitalizations in summer will reach 200 thousand people, in winter - 500 thousand, follows from the forecasts.

Coronavirus case dies in China for the first time since May Society

The results of the forecasts were affected by the fact that China could not establish full courses of vaccinations for tens of millions of elderly citizens, as well as solve the problem of a shortage of intensive care units three years after the onset of the infection, the FT notes.

“The current propaganda message is that lifting restrictions will cost nothing. <...> The risk is that they underestimate how much work – and cost – the rest of the world has done and incurred to get to the point of living with covid,” said Wigram DIRECTOR Rodney Jones.

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He pointed out that the Chinese authorities did not prepare in any way for the lifting of restrictions, and the head of the PRC, Xi Jinping, "seems to be doing this impulsively in response to protests, and not as part of an elaborate political program."

Mass protests against covid measures in China.Photo report Photo gallery 

Mass actions against tough covid restrictions in China began on November 25. The reason for the rallies was a fire in the city of Urumqi, during which ten people died. According to the South China Morning Post, the building was in a "high-risk" area due to the coronavirus, so leaving could be difficult. City officials denied this.

At the same time, a new increase in the number of COVID-19 infections was detected in China in November, on the 25th almost 33,000 new cases were detected per day, and more than 35,000 cases a day later. The South China Morning Post pointed out that these are record rates of incidence. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Urumqi and other cities then began to ease restrictions.

In early December, China's National Health Administration allowed those with asymptomatic or mild symptoms to be treated at home and would be transferred to hospitals if their condition worsened.