A medical worker hands fever medicine to a resident at a makeshift fever clinic set up inside a stadium, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Beijing, China, on Dec 14, 2022.China's abrupt lifting of stringent Covid-19 restrictions could result in an explosion of cases and over a million deaths through 2023, according to new projections from the US-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation .
"Nobody thought they would stick to zero-Covid as long as they did," Murray said on Friday when the IHME projections were released online. "China has since the original Wuhan outbreak barely reported any deaths. That is why we looked to Hong Kong to get an idea of the infection fatality rate," Murray said.
Key concerns include China's large pool of susceptible individuals, the use of less effective vaccines and low vaccine coverage among those 80 and older, who are at greatest risk of severe disease.