The Infection Rate of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: Combined Analysis of Population Samples

  1. Hui-Qi Qu
  2. Zhangkai Jason Cheng
  3. Zhifeng Duan
  4. Lifeng Tian
  5. Hakon Hakonarson

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Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Wuhan had a much higher mortality rate than the rest of China. However, a large number of asymptomatic infections in Wuhan may have never been diagnosed, contributing to an overestimated mortality rate.

Objective

This study aims to obtain an accurate estimate of infections in Wuhan using internet data.

Methods

In this study, we performed a combined analysis of the infection rate among evacuated foreign citizens to estimate the infection rate in Wuhan in late January and early February.

Results

Based on our analysis, the combined infection rate of the foreign evacuees was 0.013 (95% CI 0.008-0.022). Therefore, we estimate the number of infected people in Wuhan to be 143,000 (range 88,000-242,000), which is significantly higher than previous estimates. Our study indicates that a large number of infections in Wuhan were not diagnosed, which has resulted in an overestimated case fatality rate.

Conclusions

Increased awareness of the original infection rate of Wuhan is critical for proper public health measures at all levels, as well as to eliminate panic caused by overestimated mortality rates that may bias health policy actions by the authorities.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.02.20088724: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  2. Version published to 10.2196/20914
  3. Version published to 10.2196/preprints.20914
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.02.20088724v1 on medRxiv