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00:00As I said, you guys do data, you've been tracking this through hours. We've come to you every every time to figure out what is happening. Rasmus, just talk to me what the picture looks like right now in terms of natural and acquired immunity in China. If it was to open now, how exposed would the population be? Yeah, China is facing a very, very difficult situation. I would say it's almost as difficult as it was three years ago when Covid just hit fault for a number of reasons the protection levels. Overall, when you model the number of the vaccine uptake the vaccines have taken that used to homegrown vaccines that are less effective than the western vaccines, and then also take into account that this strain of the variant, the Army front is significantly more transmissible and to a naive population as the Chinese that hasn't been exposed to the virus. It is as deadly a deadlier than the original strain. When you take all of that into account model it also look at what happened in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is quite a good proxy for what? For what would probably happen in in China. Then what we're seeing is that up to two million people could die in the coming six months if Corbett runs wild. So a full opening of China, in my view, seems like a very risky endeavor and maybe not very likely. That's a huge amount. I mean, two million deaths, obviously, China's trying to find a middle ground. Can you walk me through the models of vaccination for the elderly, like how quickly China can do that and how quickly there can be some kind of immunity? And does it change based on the vaccine that they choose? Yes. So I think the way forward for China would really be to model the Western playbook, which is buy yourself time to get vaccinated, not take really what's quite remarkable now in China is vaccination has almost stopped. You know, there's been very little vaccine uptake over basically since since the spring. Which means that even the vaccine protection is quite low. And and taking into account that the vaccine was 20 to 30 percent less effective against hostile attention and deaths than the Western vaccines. That gives you a D D picture. I would say that it's important to bear in mind that the case rates in China are still relatively low. They're lower than they are in most, most European countries, lower than they are in the US. And if you look at after South Korea and others, they're much higher rates of the cases. It's it's small enough that China can contain what they have now and then they can boost with a vaccination campaign ISE. I think part of the problem is that maybe the Chinese population is skeptical of these vaccines because even the high risk groups have fairly low vaccine uptake rates, which is different what from what we see in the West. So I think importing Western vaccines is one of the obvious way forward fault for China. They could do that gradually, but still track and trace, keep the infection under control too confined areas and by themselves time to get more of the population vaccinated and then gradually also acquire immunity, natural immunity, as we've done in the West. Russ, as if we were to see China reopening, if we were to see case counts balloon. How big a risk would there be that we would see a new variant emerge from that group that would pose a threat to the rest of the world? Well, we're seeing new variants all the time. I think that that would be part of the. But but really the bigger threat is to the Chinese people. You would see overflowing hospital, a know Chinese hospital. If you look at spare capacity of ICU, spare capacity of hospitals. There isn't a lot. Already in China, if you see what happened in Hong Kong, it was a very dire situation. Hong Kong was facing ISE. I think that's what you're going to see. And I think it's it's unlikely that the Chinese authorities will be able to accept. That's right. Which is why it feels like at least getting the elderly, poppy, which is exactly where the West was at, you know, a year and a half ago, two years ago. So, Rasmus, to that point, how many shots would the elderly have to have for that to ease the pressure on ICU and ventilators? Well, if you just got one shot. Good vaccine. You would. You'd go really far. Ideally, you would have a double shot, but just one shot of a good vaccine. We model how many vaccines are available in your spare vaccine, stockpiles of Madonna fires and other Western vaccine to the more than a billion available since the vaccines are actually out there on Micron. Produced vaccines are now in the number of like hundred and fifty million a month that Pfizer would own. Now producing that dose of those could also be shipped to China. So I think, you know, we've seen that actually. Did you know the shortage of vaccines that we saw early on the pandemic? That's not the situation. The vaccines are there. They're available. They could be shipped to China. They could be BBB applied. And then also, I would would mentioned that therapeutics we have now, part of the reason we're seeing lower mortality rates in the West is also because we have better treatments, more very effective treatments. And China could also buy more of those and start applying that. That could also ease the ease, the pressure. Is what you're saying basically that unless China decides to buy huge quantities of vaccines and therapeutics from Western pharmaceutical companies, there is no obvious and easy way out for it? Are you suggesting that really is the only route that they have opened to them? I don't see. They could use their own vaccines. That would be better than nothing. But you got to ask yourself, why is it that that the vaccine uptake in China stopped in the spring? Right. Why was that right? You know, probably one big reason is that there was that the population was unwilling to take it right. So I guess it would be better to use Western vaccines. Second, best use their own vaccines, but this kind of constant lockdown with no end in sight. It's not like China can protect itself from Devi was forever. Right? They will have to have to. If I was living in the population at one point, there's no other way. No country, not even China, can protect ourselves against this virus. It's impossible. OK. So to that point, you mentioned the staggering number of 2 million deaths. If we just take a broad reopening, what kind of deaths and hearts hospitalizations can you guys model if we do see an uptake of vaccine like whereas the tipping point, like if you get 70 percent of the elderly population vaccine, it does that death rate come down? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So it would all depend on the on the uptake and especially uptake of the vulnerable population and then also the treatments, the type of treatment. So that that would be difficult to put a precise number. But I think you could you could you it would be significantly less. It's unlikely that China will have noticed and probably be, you know, hundreds of thousands no matter what. But, you know, the two millions, that would be like a third to a fourth of the total deaths of Corbett worldwide. So that would be, you know, very, very much. I think that could swing much less than that. 10 percent of that also would maybe even less. But it depends on a lot of factors.

Airfinity's Hansen Says China Needs To Ramp Up Vaccinations

Airfinity CEO and Co-Founder Rasmus Bech Hansen feels China's population has acquired almost no naturally acquired immunity through previous infection due to the country's zero-covid policy. He told this to Alix Steel and Guy Johnson on "Bloomberg Markets: America." (Source: Bloomberg)

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