Opening up could trigger colossal Covid outbreak in China: Study

China could record upwards of 6.3 lakh Covid-19 cases daily if it mimics the anti-pandemic strategies implemented in the US, lifts travel bans or drops its “zero-tolerance” approach against the virus, a new research by Peking University experts said.

Published last week by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control’s weekly, four researchers have warned of a “colossal outbreak”, which could put an “unaffordable burden” on the country’s health system if Beijing moved away from its current anti-Covid-19 strategies.

“More efficient vaccinations or more specific treatment, preferably a combination of both, are needed before entry-exit quarantine measures and other Covid-19 response strategies in China can be safely lifted,” the researchers from Peking University with expertise in mathematics, statistics and public health, said.

“The estimates revealed the real possibility of a colossal outbreak which would almost certainly put an unbearable burden on the medical system,” the authors said in the report.

The research paper, titled, “On Coexistence with Covid-19: Estimations and Perspectives”, compared China’s anti-epidemic measures with that of five other countries: the US, UK, Israel, Spain and France.

Despite local and even interprovincial outbreaks in recent months, China has been able to control the spread of coronavirus within the country since it first emerged from the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Until Saturday, the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases on the mainland was 98,631 while the death toll stood at 4,636.

Brushing aside criticism against the policy being “unsustainable”, China has continued to implement the “zero-Covid” policy through strict lockdowns for even a handful of cases, efficient contact tracing, hard quarantine measures and controlled or closed international borders. It also involves large-scale nucleic acid testing and strict travel and health code management.

The study used data for August from the five countries to conclude that China could have logged between 2.6 lakh to 6.3 lakh cases every day if similar strategies to fight the pandemic had been in place, with the worst-case scenario of 637,155 daily infections becoming a reality if the model adopted by the US, a country with much less population and population density, was relied on.