China faces 'colossal outbreak' on US-style reopening, says study

China would face a “colossal outbreak” on a scale beyond anything any other country has yet seen, if it were to reopen in a similar manner to the US. That’s a prediction based on statistical modelling by researchers at Beijing’s Peking University.

A switch from China’s current Covid elimination strategy to an American-style approach with few restrictions would lead to as many as 637,155 infections a day, according to the study, which was published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 

That would be the largest daily figure reported by any country since the start ofthe pandemic.