Is China underestimating its Covid-19 numbers in its latest outbreak?
- Public health experts believe scale of latest surge could be obscured by non-reporting of positive rapid test results and other factors
- China’s large number of unvaccinated elderly people would also usually be accompanied by a higher death rate, they said
Several factors could be contributing to an underestimation of the extent of the outbreak, they warned.
“I think China is probably underestimating the cases that are really occurring,” said Peter Collignon, infectious disease expert and professor at the Australian National University’s medical school.
Collignon pointed to the fast spread of the Omicron variant, the potential for people not to report results from antigen self-test kits and the large number of unvaccinated elderly people, which would usually be accompanied by more deaths.
While antigen self-test kits are available on the market, positive results must be confirmed with PCR tests. Some local governments, including Jilin province and Shanghai, have distributed them to residents for free to ease testing bottlenecks.
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Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, echoed Collignon’s concerns about the use of rapid antigen testing.