Since China announced a significant relaxation of the epidemic prevention policy on December 7, the mutated strain of Omicron has spread rapidly in big cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou. At one time, there were queues at fever clinics, and shortages of antipyretics and antigen reagents.
In addition to the treatment of mild cases, the general concern of all parties is how many deaths Omicron will bring.
Reuters quoted the latest forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in the United States as saying that within 2023, China's sudden lifting of strict restrictions on the new crown virus epidemic could lead to a surge in cases, with more than 1 million people. die.
According to CNN, according to a paper published on the Medrxiv preprint server last Wednesday (December 14), disease modelers at the University of Hong Kong predicted that, based on China's population of 1.41 billion, if there is no large-scale promotion of vaccination With the strengthening of measures such as needles, the death toll will reach 964,400.
Given China's huge population base, judging from the forecasts published by these foreign media, millions of deaths are inevitable.
But will China really have millions of deaths due to the relaxation of epidemic prevention and control measures?
not necessarily!
The current epidemic situation in Beijing is severe, and the infection rate among medical staff remains high.
(Xinhua News Agency)
First of all, the above predictions are based on assumptions, that is, loosening control and not promoting large-scale vaccination booster shots and other measures.
The reality is that China's vaccination rate has remained at a relatively high level in the past three years since the epidemic, and the proportion of Chinese people who have completed two shots of vaccination has exceeded 90%.
According to data from the National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention of China, as of November 28, the number of people over the age of 60 in China accounted for 86.42% of the elderly population, while the number of people over the age of 80 only accounted for 65.8% of the population over the age of 80.
Simultaneously with the relaxation of epidemic prevention and control, there is also the acceleration of the vaccination of the elderly against the new crown virus.
At present, many places in China have made it clear that by the end of this year or January next year, the vaccination rate of the first dose of the new coronavirus vaccine for people over 80 years old will reach 90%; 95%.
For example, Yexian County, Henan Province, China issued a notice on December 9, two days after the relaxation of epidemic prevention and control measures, requiring all units to make full use of big data methods, combined with "door-knocking action" to verify door-to-door, accurately find out the base number of target groups over 60 years old, and establish The account of the target group is mobilized and sold one by one.
Judging from the above measures, the situation in China is far from reaching the point where the worst Omicron strain spreads naturally. The vaccine has established a basic protective barrier, which can effectively reduce the fatality rate, and there may not be a million deaths.
The three typical symptoms of new coronary pneumonia are high fever, persistent cough and loss of taste and smell, but some experts pointed out that the symptoms after infection with Omicron virus are not the same as the previous variant virus.
(ZOE COVID Symptom Study)
Secondly, from the past experience of epidemic prevention and control, the fatality rate is largely related to whether the supply of medical resources is sufficient.
In the past three years of epidemic prevention and control, China's medical resources have been effectively expanded.
As early as July this year, media reports in mainland China showed that within a month, hundreds of shelter hospitals were born.
The notice issued by China's National Health and Medical Commission in July also clarified the equipment configuration standards for shelter hospitals. There are 53 types of medical equipment, including central monitoring systems, electrocardiogram machines, defibrillation monitors, automatic blood analyzers, specific protein analyzers, square Cabin CT/vehicle CT, etc.
After relaxing the epidemic prevention and control measures on December 7, the Chinese government issued a special notice again on December 11, emphasizing the medical services for COVID-19 in rural areas, and required that the preparation of critical care medical resources and the major of critical care medicine be completed by the end of December. Relevant medical staff prepare, strengthen the construction of buffer wards, and do a good job in the construction of the Department of Infectious Diseases.
In China's official notice, the above four goals all have specific numerical requirements, such as the requirement to speed up the construction and upgrading of comprehensive intensive care (ICU) monitoring units, and to ensure the number of comprehensive ICU beds used to treat critically ill patients with new crowns Not less than 4% of the total number of beds actually opened in the hospital.
One ICU bed is required to be equipped with one doctor and 2.5-3 nurses, each shift is 8-12 hours, and 20-30% more medical staff will be added as a backup force.
It is required to guide and check the construction and renovation of the intensive care unit of county-level hospitals.
China is stepping up preparations for the spread of the epidemic to vast rural areas.
Expanding medical resources for emergency rescue in just over half a month is an arduous task, and whether it can be completed will directly affect the number of deaths.
The biggest difference between China's epidemic prevention and control and other countries such as the United States is that the treatment resources such as hospitals are in the hands of the government, and the proportion of private hospitals in China's medical system is quite low.
The mobilization and coordination capabilities of the Chinese government have been effectively tested in the past three years of epidemic prevention and control.
This has laid the foundation for China to quickly optimize emergency rescue resources and effectively reduce the fatality rate.
Therefore, it is arbitrary to speculate that millions of people will die in China without considering China's special national conditions.
The Delta virus, which has a lethal rate much higher than that of Omicron, once ravaged India. According to Indian official data, its death toll was 480,000, while the WHO model reported its death toll was 4.7 million.
The picture shows medical staff sending a new crown patient to a hospital in Bangalore, India.
(Xinhua News Agency)
Third, it is not scientific to rely on mathematical models and the experience of other countries to predict the epidemic situation in China.
The current consensus about Omicron around the world is that the lethality rate has been greatly reduced compared with the original strain and Delta.
Moreover, the death rate varies from country to country and from time to time.
Different countries have different statistics on deaths from the new crown and those who died with the new crown.
China announced that the death toll from the Wuhan epidemic in 2020 is 3,869, while the United States estimates the death toll from the Wuhan epidemic to be more than 40,000 based on its own situation, a difference of more than ten times.
According to the data released by the World Health Organization in May this year, the mortality rate in Africa is as high as 2%, while in Singapore it is as low as 0.1%, a difference of 20 times. Even in developed regions, the data of Singapore and Hong Kong are also very different. The fifth wave of the epidemic in Hong Kong The mortality rate was 0.75%.
According to Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the current data parameters in the United States, Hong Kong and other places generally infer that the fatality rate of the epidemic in China this winter is estimated to be between 0.09% and 0.16%.
Judging from the numbers, the fatality rate is not much different, but China has a huge population base, and the calculated fatality rate of 0.09% and 0.16% differ by hundreds of thousands.
Therefore, whether it is applicable to predict the epidemic situation in a country with a population of 1.4 billion by mathematical models is not yet known.
The cumulative death toll in the United States in the past three years has exceeded 1.1 million. However, it is obviously too early for foreign media to cite individual studies to conclusively speculate that there may be millions of deaths in China at the beginning of the epidemic prevention and control in China.
I hope that the discussion around the death toll is just a discussion based on mathematical models, rather than a premeditated public opinion war.
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