Our model shows that China’s covid death toll could be massive
It should act as a wake-up call for the government
Modelling a covid-19 epidemic anywhere is difficult. But it is especially hard in China, where the data are often unreliable. Take the official case numbers, which suggest the current outbreak is waning. It is clearly not. No one knows the true state of the epidemic in China.
But there is enough data available to produce an informed estimate of where things are heading. So we have built a model that calculates the trajectory of China’s outbreak under different scenarios based on estimates of the rates at which people become infected, get sick, recover or die (known as a SEIR model). The results are shocking. If the virus is allowed to spread unencumbered, we predict that 1.5m Chinese people will die.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "Lives on the lines"
From the December 17th 2022 edition
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