Jennifer Rigby and David Stanway

SHANGHAI/LONDON – China is at high risk for 1.5 million COVID deaths if its zero-COVID policy goes away. There are no safeguards in place, such as access to treatment and vaccination ramping up. New modelling from scientists in China and America shows that China’s vulnerability to this.

This warning comes after several reports were published by senior Chinese health advisors who stated that the zero-COVID strategy was essential for defeating the pandemic as well as buying enough time to mitigate it.

China is sticking with its zero COVID strategy, even though many other countries who once supported the policy moved towards living with it to open their economies and restore individual freedoms.

Zero-COVID allows authorities to lock down large populations to prevent viral spread. This is even in cases where only a few people are positive.

Shanghai is home to 25 million residents. It has been in lockdown for six weeks while it fights China’s largest coronavirus epidemic. Residents are angry and pressured economically. [L2N2WL041]

Nature Medicine’s new research suggests that, while it could pose a risk to public health, it could also be beneficial for older people to be vaccinated.

According to the authors, “The Omicron wave would not have been prevented if there was sufficient immunity from the March 2022 vaccine campaign.”

According to worldwide data on the severity of this variant, it was predicted that intensive care demand would rise 150%, leading to roughly 1.5 million deaths.

Researchers said that the death rate could be reduced by focusing on vaccination. Only about half of China’s over-80s are currently vaccinated. They also recommend providing antivirals and limiting access to certain drugs.

Fudan University in China has been the leading author of the paper. The U.S. National Institutes of Health research team also supported them.

“The availability and affordability of antiviral drugs and vaccines offers an opportunity to shift away from zero-COVID. “I can’t imagine what there is to wait for now,” Ben Cowling of Hong Kong University, who was familiar with this study.

He advised that it was important to make the transition slowly.

China’s health experts are sticking with zero COVID at the moment.

The Lancet published correspondence last Friday by a group of Shanghai medical specialists stating that because Shanghai is such a crucial part of the Chinese economy, lockdown in Shanghai was inevitable.

The team includes Zhang Wenhong who is a consultant to Shanghai authorities on COVID-19 treatment.

They said that Shanghai’s zero-COVID policy would be “more effective than weak links in the immune barrier in population across the country”, pointing out the fact that 49 million Chinese over 60 remain unvaccinated.

According to Liang Wannian, a senior health advisor and official journal of China’s Disease Prevention and Control Center, zero-COVID is still necessary to stop a “run” on China’s healthcare resources.

The country should “seize every opportunity” to produce more medicines and vaccines, it stated.