Chapter 6China Outside of Hubei
Chapter 7The Costs of the COVID-19 Epidemic to China
Chapter 8International Comparisons
Appendix 1 Corrections and Adjustments of the Data
Appendix 2 Estimation of the Probabilities of Transmission
Introduction
The COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019) epidemic took everyone by surprise. No one in early January expected or could have predicted that an epidemic would occur in China, or for that matter, elsewhere. And no one expected it to develop into an ongoing global pandemic that infected more than six million people and resulted in almost 370,0001 deaths worldwide in less than six months. The people and the economy of every country, large and small, have been seriously impacted, with new COVID-19 cases and deaths rising rapidly every day, GDPs collapsing and unemployment rates soaring.
China had to order a blockade and lockdown of Hubei Province, with a population of approximately 60 million, and Wuhan, its capital city, with a population of 11 million. There was also a lockdown of most of the Mainland. China should probably have acted sooner, given that human-to-human transmission had occurred in Wuhan (the infection of medical personnel was proof enough). However, both the blockade and lockdown were really quite successful in minimising further transmission and saving lives in China.
As of 31 May 2020, the cumulative total confirmed COVID-19 cases on Mainland China was 81,261 and the cumulative total deaths was 4,634.2 These were not insignificant numbers, but were relatively small compared to the rest of the world, bearing in mind that China has approximately one-quarter of the world population.
The population infection rate, the case mortality rate and the population mortality rate of Mainland China outside of Hubei have all been very low. The cumulative total confirmed COVID-19 cases on Mainland China outside of Hubei was 13,127 and the cumulative total deaths outside of Hubei was only 122. These relatively low numbers outside of Hubei could not have been possible without the blockade and lockdown of Hubei. The experiences of Italy and the U.S. provide examples of what could have happened. Of course, the economic costs for China have also been high, but it is not clear that countries such as Italy and the U.S. have been able to avoid those costs.
In writing this book, we have principally relied on the official data issued by the official central, provincial and local government agencies. We include data up to and including 31 May. We attempt to correct the inconsistencies in the official data and smooth the surges in data not directly due to the COVID-19 epidemic itself.
This book is organised as follows. The introduction in Chapter 1 is followed by a chronological account of the COVID-19 epidemic on the Mainland in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, we recount our earlier successful attempt in mid-February at predicting the conclusion of the COVID-19 epidemic on the Mainland. In Chapters 4, 5 and 6, we review the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic on the Mainland as a whole, in Wuhan and Hubei, and in areas outside of Hubei respectively. There were very significant differences between Mainland outside of Hubei (hereinafter Mainland ex Hubei) and Hubei, and between Hubei outside of Wuhan (hereinafter Hubei ex Wuhan) and Wuhan. In Chapter 7, we attempt to estimate the economic costs of the COVID-19 epidemic to China and assess the prospects of its economic recovery. In Chapter 8, we compare the Chinese experience with those of the Group of Seven (G7) and the other BRICS countries. We offer some brief concluding remarks in Chapter 9.
In Appendix 1, “Corrections and Adjustments of the Data”, we document how we corrected the inconsistencies and smoothed the surges in the official data. In Appendix 2, “Estimation of the Probabilities of Transmission”, we describe how we estimated the probabilities of transmission of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus in 2003 and the COVID-19 virus in 2020 respectively, which were used to predict the conclusions of the two epidemics.
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1Many observers claim that the number of COVID-19 deaths is significantly under-counted.
2These numbers excluded cases in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan as well as imported cases.
A Chronology of the COVID-19 Epidemic on the Mainland
In this chapter, we try to provide a brief chronological account of the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic on the Mainland of China. Chapter 2 consists of four sections, titled The Beginning, The Blockade and Lockdown, Combatting the COVID-19 Virus, and The Re-Opening.
The Beginning
The COVID-19 epidemic first broke out in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province, China. The first patient was identified with an unknown viral pneumonia on 1 December 2019,1 and subsequently reported and confirmed in a study published in a scientific journal, The Lancet, on 24 January 2020 (Huang, et al., 2020). However, this first patient had no history of direct or indirect contact with the South China Seafood Market in Wuhan, the suspected original source of the COVID-19 virus in China. During the entire month of December 2019, little more was known about the pneumonia, though some local hospitals in Wuhan did find clusters of similarly infected patients.
The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission first informed the public of this unknown pneumonia on 31 December 2019. As of that date, 27 infected patients had already been identified, most of whom appeared to have had direct or indirect connections to or contacts with the South China Seafood Market.2 At the same time that Wuhan first informed the public about the unknown pneumonia, it also declared that no medical personnel had been infected and no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus had been confirmed.3 On the same day, the regional office of the World