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00:00What do you think the picture really is in China right now? The official data is showing us one thing. What do you think the unofficial data would look like if we could see it? Yeah, you're right, guy. You know, it is very hard to make sense of the official numbers coming out of China because what what they show is really a decline in case numbers from last week and already last week to a fairly low number around around 30, I believe per million, and then should then be dropped to like 15 per million. Right. In comparison, the US is on almost at around 200 per million. Right. So, Susan, we are seeing the official numbers, this kind of quite dramatic drop at the same time as vaccination is easing. At the same time, we know that Army Con is veterans visible and hitting across China. And then anecdotally, we're seeing reports on hospital overflow. We're seeing a medical supply shortage in the Beijing area. So these are two very different worlds. I think if you look at our our forecast, we would have expected around a thousand per million cases by now. And that is that is equivalent of more than a million cases. So. So I think definitely the truth is somewhere in between that number and then the official number from from China, I find it very hard to see why a case would have dropped over the last week. So I think that the case serves that we keep hearing about those seems confusing because based on Bloomberg reporting, it seems like people that have a mild version of Covid will go to the hospital because of the fear instilled by the government during a 0 Covid policy versus those that desperately need to get to the hospital. Can you give me perspective on how many hospital beds might be taken up by severe cases? Yes. So I think that is a really good point, Doug. When you look at hospitalization numbers, you have to distinguish between ICU capacity, ICU numbers and then possibly station numbers and then deaths. Those are the three key metrics. We've also monitored, of course, all the other countries, but none of those numbers, if you look at the official stats from phone from China right now. Look, look way worrying. We're not seeing an increase in any of those. I think that the biggest problem China has is that their ICU capacity is quite low. It's around 3 per 3 per million in comparison. Hong Kong had double that. So so so China is not particularly well prepared from an ICU. I think people going to the hospital with a mild disease is not not the biggest concern, but it is the ICU starts to overflow, seeing problems with ventilators and all of that. And we've seen in western countries and elsewhere over the term of the pandemic that starts to happen, Chinese problem. But the official numbers are not showing that at the moment. How useful is the Western experience here? We don't have the vaccinations even in the West. We had stop, start, stop, start. Is that what we're going to see here? But maybe worse? Yeah, I think I think that is the only way forward. I think like like last time we spoke about the idea that the only route forward for China really is to massively increase vaccinations. And we have seen a six fold increase in vaccinations over the last week. So I think that's quite positive. Also, seeing that China has approved four new vaccines approaching subunit unit, there's still home grown vaccines, but their new generation of vaccine technology, they're targeted. The Army and the initial data from study is around them to show that they're better than the original Chinese vaccine. So we're seeing an increase in that. But but still in comparison, at its height, China vaccinated 22 million a day. Right now, they're vaccinating 600000. So there's still a wide gap. There's still much more that China can do to boost booster vaccinations. And this is just the original vaccine. This isn't like a booster or anything like that. I mean, I mean, I'm unlike my set their sex side or something crazy, right? Yeah, it's a combination. It's both. It's both. There is a lot of people in China who haven't had any vaccines at all. But there's also a lot that haven't had any boosters. Right. So it's both. And I think that the new generation of vaccines that there was recently that was approved last week in China. Those are mostly for boosters. Some booster shots that work OK in combination with the original vaccines. And it's also interesting, by the way, that the Yemeni vaccine that's produced by facing biotech but frozen is actually being used in Beijing at the moment, but only for foreigners. So one would wonder, you know, could that be expanded to a broader part of the Chinese population? So given all of this, where do we think the peak in this current cycle is going to be? How big a number are we talking about? Yes, I think, you know, if we look at Hong Kong and others, it can go much, much higher. Hong Kong, as its height, was at around eight eight eight thousand per million. Right. And as I said, you know, China is the much, much lower to go, much higher. And from previous peaks, that would happen one to two months in. So they would be mid January, end of January, early February. We would we would see that peak. And then sadly at that point, we would see more than 50000 deaths a day. If based on the experience from other countries. So those are those are kind of the real numbers we are looking at. And I think, as I said, I think we're not there yet. I think we would have seen some different picture in China if that was the case. But I also think that we are not on the very low numbers that the official stats are reporting.

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Airfinity CEO Says Covid Peak Could Go Much Higher

Rasmus Bech Hansen, Airfinity Co-Founder and CEO, told Alix Steel and Guy Johnson Covid-19 may not have peaked yet in China. He said this Monday morning on "Bloomberg Markets: Americas." (Source: Bloomberg)

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