As China eases zero-Covid, fears grow that human toll will remind of Hong Kong’s deadly fifth wave

Health experts are using Hong Kong data as a model due to similar elderly vaccination situation when spring surge hit

Low booster rates among older people in a vast population yet to develop hybrid immunity has sparked forecasts of over a million deaths

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Residents line up outside the fever clinic at a hospital in Beijing after the easing of Covid-19 restrictions. Photo: AP

Published: 11:00am, 12 Dec 2022Updated: 12:10am, 14 Dec 2022

Corrected [12:09am, 14 Dec, 2022]

[12:09am, 14 Dec, 2022]
An earlier version of this report incorrectly reported the case fatality rate for recipients of three shots of the BioNTech vaccine.

It was the last stronghold of zero-Covid, its vast population largely shielded from the worst of the pandemic for close to three years.

But all that changed last week, as China finally let go of controversial restrictions like lockdowns and mass testing in a bid to mitigate the social and economic costs of its stringent anti-Covid policy.

But while there is joy and relief at the marked shift in curbs, there are also deep concerns.

All eyes are now on how well the country of 1.4 billion manages to “live with the virus”.

Many health experts have used Hong Kong data as a proxy for their forecasts, as the situation in the city about a year ago was very similar to the current status in the Chinese mainland.

When a deadly fifth wave of Covid-19 hit Hong Kong last February, it had relatively low vaccination coverage for those aged 80 and above, and millions of people who had never been exposed to Covid-19.

Those conditions are now causing worries about the mainland, with the Omicron and its many subvariants spreading quickly and only 40 per cent of those above 80 having received booster shots.