PRC COVID mortality estimate: 3M - 5M

Summary

PRC COVID-induced excess deaths:

• Absolute minimum requiring a miracle: 1 M
• Likely minimum: 2.5 M
• Likely range: 3 M - 5 M

How I derived these numbers:

First, if you doubt the current high COVID fatalities based on anecdotes instead of official data, let's think in this way. People are paying what is equivalent to 2 - 3 months' salary to avoid unpredictable long waits at Beijing crematoria, so long waiting lines are common.

Beijing has 12 crematoria and many more in its vicinity. If people could drive 100km or more to have timely cremation, they would not spend so much money to save the 1 or 2 hours of transportation. 

If Beijing with the best healthcare resources has such a high fatality rate, you can imagine the fatality rates of other places.

It is fair to compare the PRC with other East Asian countries. Japan, S. Korea, and TW are exemplary - high vigilance, high vax rates, and orderly opening, so they have much lower excess death rates than most other countries.

If the PRC MIRACULOUSLY achieves what these countries have to get an excess death rate of 0.07%, the excess deaths of its 1.4B pop will be 1M. This is the absolute minimum.

The current COVID situation in the PRC is very similar to that of Hong Kong in earlier 2022 - low effective vax rate among seniors - but Hong Kong's healthcare is much better than most places of the Mainland.

If the PRC achieves Hong Kong's excess death rate of 0.18%, its excess deaths will be 2.5M - low prob best scenario.

These are minimums.

Another way to estimate the PRC's excess deaths to reach the range of 3M - 5M:

The PRC's normal mortality rate: is 0.7% or 10M/y. The mortality rate in the winter is a bit higher, so about 1M/month.  

Crematories are normally open for about 8 hours, and there are usually rituals before and after the cremation, so cremators work probably 6 hours/per day. Crematories usually do not operate at their full capacities. Now, many PRC crematories work 24/7 at their full capacity.

Assuming the normal winter capacity utilization rate is 80%, this means they are handling 24/6/0.8 = 5x the normal volume in areas under a COVID wave, so the mortality rate is 5M/month, with 4M/month as the excess death rate. 

Crematories will likely be overloaded for much longer than a month for a given area based on anecdotes about the long waiting time, but not necessarily at the 5x normal load all the time. The load will abate gradually. Let's suppose the overall overload is equivalent to maintaining the maximum for a month, then the excess deaths are 4M. Give it a margin of 25%, the range will be 3M to 5M.

Here is a piece of evidence to support the estimate:

Tsinghua's staff deaths in December 2022 are about the same as 4 months' deaths in a normal year, so the excess deaths in one month are about the same as 3 months' normal deaths. It is far from over yet. If the final count is equivalent to 5 months' normal deaths, it will be about 4M.