China warns of 2 million deaths per year if it reopens
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The backstory:
- We have mentioned that Hong Kong and the mainland have a strict no COVID-19 policy, which has put Hong Kong on the receiving end of a fair bit of scrutiny, especially from the business community.
- But this approach has also gotten the mainland some criticism, especially recently as the country hosts the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
- On Sunday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said to the state-run Global Times, “We previously thought COVID-19 could be basically contained through vaccines but now it seems that there’s no simple method to control it except with comprehensive measures."
The development:
- A team of Chinese scientists published a research paper on Friday in the CCDC’s weekly bulletin. Using studies from Chile and Britain, their research asserts that even if the global vaccination rate reached 95%, China would see 234 million infections within a year if it reopened to 2019 levels, including 64 million symptomatic cases and 2 million deaths.
- “The human race should continue to develop vaccines and explore new ways to improve vaccine protection against infection in order to eliminate COVID-19 at the global level."
- The group said that in order to reduce the severity of COVID-19 to the levels of the flu, the vaccine efficacy against infection needs to increase to 40%, and the efficacy against symptomatic disease needs to increase to 90%.
- “The key to controlling COVID-19 lies in the development and widespread use of vaccines that are more effective at preventing infection," the team said.
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