Coronavirus: apart from Wuhan, China’s death rates didn’t rise at start of pandemic, study finds
- In the first three months of 2020, mortality rates in Wuhan were 56 per cent higher than estimates based on average in previous years
- But elsewhere they were lower than expected, which researchers said may be related to behavioural changes during lockdown
That showed the country had been successful in limiting the spread of the coronavirus, according to researchers from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Oxford.
Their peer-reviewed study – published in The BMJ medical journal on Wednesday – found the death rate in three districts of Wuhan to be 1,147 per 100,000 people in the first three months of 2020.
That was 56 per cent higher than estimates based on the average death rate between 2015 and 2019, and was chiefly due to an eightfold rise in pneumonia-related deaths.
By contrast, the study found no evidence that death rates had gone up elsewhere in China. Mortality rates from pneumonia – except for those caused by the coronavirus – as well as chronic respiratory illnesses and traffic accidents were lower than predicted. The researchers noted that this coincided closely with China’s nationwide lockdown.
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Returning to Wuhan one year since the Chinese city became ground zero of the Covid-19 pandemic
As the outbreak worsened, strict lockdown measures were imposed on Wuhan – a city of 11 million people in the central province of Hubei – from January 23, 2020, with people confined to their homes and transport shut down.