1 million may die! Study estimates new round of coronavirus deaths in China

Residents of Beijing stood and waited at a community clinic on the 15th

The death toll from COVID-19 in China could be approaching one million after the Chinese government eased lockdown measures, according to a new study from Hong Kong, according to Bloomberg.

In the absence of a widespread vaccination booster campaign and other measures to reduce the impact of the virus, China could experience as many as 684 deaths per million people from COVID-19 after restrictions are eased, the study suggested. Based on China's population of 1.4 billion, Bloomberg estimates that the death toll in this round will reach 960,000.

The study was chaired by Gabriel Leung, former dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong. Earlier this year, his team accurately estimated the number of people who could die from the outbreak in Hong Kong. Some members of the team visited Beijing in early November and proposed to lift the lockdown measures.

The report also mentioned that the health care system in all provinces is insufficient to deal with the surge of new crown cases after reopening. The report also emphasized that reopening in a more orderly manner would have saved lives; if China had waited until January, after increasing vaccination rates and providing more antiviral drugs, the death rate could be reduced by a quarter.