UK’s Airfinity: China COVID deaths accelerate to 9,000 a day

“Around 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID-19, UK-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday, nearly doubling its estimate from a week ago, as infections ripped across the world's most populous nation,” reported Reuters.

Key quotes

Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1 likely reached 100,000 with infections totalling 18.6 million, Airfinity said in a statement. It says it uses modelling based on data from Chinese provinces before the recent changes to reporting cases were implemented.

Airfinity expects China's COVID infections to reach their first peak on Jan. 13 with 3.7 million cases a day.

Airfinity expects deaths to peak on Jan. 23 around 25,000 a day, with cumulative deaths reaching 584,000 since December.

Since Dec. 7 when China made its abrupt policy U-turn, authorities have reported 10 COVID deaths.

As of Dec. 28, China's official COVID death toll stood at 5,246 since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Airfinity expects 1.7 million deaths across China by the end of April, according to its statement.

According to its website, in 2020 it built "the world's first dedicated COVID-19 health analytics and intelligence platform".

Market implications

The news probes the market sentiment in Asia and weighs on the S&P 500 Futures, down 0.15% intraday near 3,865, despite firmer Wall Street closing.