6 Feb 2020: Speculation of the Actual 2019-nCoV Numbers in China
I personally dont think anyone knows the actual number of death, with exception of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) leadership and the point people who are consolidating reports from all over China.
Usually in this kindda “China-numbers” cases, I will just x10 whatever “bad-news” number was officially reported by China, as a mental conditioning.
Being in Singapore, we already have 16 cases just from Wuhan tourists alone (not counting those that transited to other countries and went back to China before showing symptoms). This is around 10,000+ tourists from Wuhan. The last detected Wuhan tourist case is Feb 1st. All of them came before the Chinese New Year, mostly between 20th-22nd of January 2020.
By “hit rate”, its around 0.16% (meaning 0.16% of the 10,000 Wuhan people that came to Singapore are infected). This is before Chinese New Year (25th Jan 2020).
If we extrapolate the number of infected on the remaining 6 million Wuhan people alone (5 million left the city before the lock down, out of the 11 million population): 6,000,000 x 0.16 = 9600 infected. So this is, to me, a good estimate of the infected numbers at least by 22nd January 2020. Official confirmed cases in Hubei on 23rd Feb 2020 was: 375 infected.
So if all 9600 infected should be confirmed by Feb 1st, vs official numbers which is at 7153 cases in Hubei. We are still missing 2000+ cases, plus additional cases of infection that should be adding into the number since 22nd January.
I am suspecting that the 9600 number would have doubled at least 4 times due to community spreading since 22nd Jan. Which will bring the number to at least 153,600 cases. At 2% death rate, it would be 3072 deaths.
Today, the official Hubei confirmed cases is 19,665 cases, 549 deaths. Whole of China official confirmed cases: 28,129 cases, 564 deaths.
If I use my very flawed way of counting and speculation (based on the discrepancy between the estimated actual and the official numbers), the total number of cases in whole of China should be: 219,710 cases, 4394 deaths.
BUT
BUT, with Singapore’s evacuation of Singaporeans from Wuhan on January 30th, we have another reference point to see the scale of the infection in the city.
On Jan 30th, Singapore evacuated 92 Singaporeans from Wuhan. Some passengers are left behind as they were showing symptoms. Out of the 92 Singaporeans, 4 were eventually shown to be infected with the virus. This is not considering those that were left behind.
4 out of 92, is 4% infected rate of the total number (Jan 30th). This is markedly higher than the 0.16% infected rate estimated for Jan 22nd, just 8 days earlier). If we break down the numbers, its a 1.5 times increase per day for 8 days, for 0.16% to reach 4%.
4% of Wuhan’s 6 million people, would be 240,000 infected. Which means, by 30th January 2020, the death rate would actually be 4,800 deaths.
The official number on 30th January 2020 was 7,818 confirmed cases in whole of China.
And if the spreading is continued to be uncontrolled, we may be looking at the very very least, a doubling of the infected over the span of 8 days (very conservative figure I feel. But the official number of cases in Hubei had multipled by 4.288 times, from 4586 cases (30 Jan) to 19665 cases (7 Feb).
Lets go with my more conservative figure (doubling), the total number of infected in Hubei alone, would be 480,000 infected and 9,600 deaths by 6th Feb 2020. Estimated number for whole of China (based on the ratio of Hubei vs rest of China in the official figures) would be 686,400 infected and 13,728 deaths.
But ultimately, the above are just “wild assumptions“. Its not the real figures. We will probably never know the real figures.
I will be updating this article (or posting a new one) in another 2 weeks, after Singapore 2nd evacuation flight, which will be conducted later today (7th Feb 2020) to Wuhan – to see if there is any new change to the percentage of infection.
Cover Photo from AP.
This article is some kind of a follow up, of my now invalidated projection of the official infections figures, which you can read it here: