China’s measures may avoid millions of infections: study

Over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths may have been avoided as a result of China’s public health measures imposed in late January, and these measures effectively contained the coronavirus spread in the country by mid-February, according to a research paper to be published in the Journal of Population Economics.

The paper, titled Impacts of Social and Economic Factors on the Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China, was completed by Shi Wei and Qiu Yun, both professors at the Institute for Economic and Social Research of the Jinan University of China, and Chen Xi, a Professor at Yale University and President of the China Health Policy and Management Society.

The paper models the local and cross-city transmissions of the novel coronavirus in China between January 19 and February 29. It found that stringent quarantine, city lockdown, and local public health measures imposed since late January significantly decreased the virus transmission rate, and that the virus spread was contained by the middle of February.

The paper quantified the effects of different public health measures in reducing the number of infections through counterfactual analyses, and said that over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths may have been avoided as a result of the national and provincial public health measures imposed in late January in China.

The paper found that one COVID-19 case led to three more cases at the end of January, and from February 2 to 29, which was after Wuhan was put under lockdown, this figure was reduced to 1.2, suggesting that health measures and people’s behavior may play an important role in containing the transmission of COVID-19.