Death Due to Covid-19 in China Increases to 9,000 Every Day, Peak Estimated on January 23 with 25,000 Cases

Dream - Airfinity, a UK-based health data company, revealed that around 9,000 people in China are likely to die every day due to COVID-19.

This number has nearly doubled from the estimate a week ago, when infections spread in the world's most populous country.

COVID-19 infections began spreading throughout China in November before rapidly increasing this month.

These cases occurred after Beijing lifted its zero-COVID policy, including the removal of regular PCR testing on its population and the publication of asymptomatic case data.

The cumulative death toll in China since December 1 is likely to reach 100,000 with a total of 18.6 million infections.

Airfinity said the figure was obtained using modeling based on data from Chinese provinces prior to recent changes for reporting new cases.

In a statement on Thursday, December 29, 2022, Airfinity estimated that COVID-19 infections in China would reach their first peak on January 13 with 3.7 million cases per day.

This prediction differs significantly from the thousands of cases reported by Chinese health authorities every day.

Airfinity also estimated that the death toll of around 25,000 cases per day due to COVID-19 would peak on January 23, with a cumulative death toll reaching 584,000 since December.

Since December 7, when China suddenly changed its policy, the government has reported 10 deaths due to COVID-19. Health officials in China recently stated that they define COVID-related deaths as those who died from respiratory failure caused by COVID-19, excluding deaths from other diseases and conditions even if they test positive for the virus. As of December 28, the official death toll in China reached 5,246 since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Airfinity estimates 1.7 million deaths across China by the end of April. According to its website, in 2020 China built the world's first 'specialized COVID-19 health analysis and intelligence platform'. Chief epidemiologist of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wu Zunyou, said on Thursday that the team plans to assess deaths differently. Source: The Guardian