NYT HEALTH: How Bad Is China’s Covid Outbreak? It’s a Scientific Guessing Game.
By Alexandra Stevenson and Benjamin Mueller
Section: Health
Source: New York Times
Published Date: December 29, 2022 at 02:00AM
But in the absence of credible information from the Chinese government, it is a big scientific guessing game to determine the size and severity of the surge in the world’s most populous country.
In Hong Kong, one team of researchers pored over passenger data from five Beijing subway lines to determine the potential spread. In Seattle, a group of modelers tried in vain to reverse-engineer an unverified government leak detailing case numbers from Chinese health officials. In Britain, scientists are coming up with their own efficacy estimates of Chinese vaccines.
Any personal anecdote or social media report from China — scarce medicines, overrun hospitals, overflowing crematories — is possible fodder for researchers’ models.
They are all attempting to understand the same things: How quickly is the virus spreading in the country? How many people are dying? Could China be the source of a new and dangerous variant?
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By Alexandra Stevenson and Benjamin Mueller
Section: Health
Source: New York Times
Published Date: December 29, 2022 at 02:00AM
In the absence of credible information from the Chinese government, researchers around the world are looking for any clues to determine the size and severity of the surge.
As Covid barrels through China, scientists around the world are searching for clues about an outbreak with sprawling consequences — for the health of hundreds of millions of Chinese people, the global economy and the future of the pandemic.But in the absence of credible information from the Chinese government, it is a big scientific guessing game to determine the size and severity of the surge in the world’s most populous country.
In Hong Kong, one team of researchers pored over passenger data from five Beijing subway lines to determine the potential spread. In Seattle, a group of modelers tried in vain to reverse-engineer an unverified government leak detailing case numbers from Chinese health officials. In Britain, scientists are coming up with their own efficacy estimates of Chinese vaccines.
Any personal anecdote or social media report from China — scarce medicines, overrun hospitals, overflowing crematories — is possible fodder for researchers’ models.
They are all attempting to understand the same things: How quickly is the virus spreading in the country? How many people are dying? Could China be the source of a new and dangerous variant?
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/health/china-covid-outbreak-predictions.html
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