ArticleScientific reports2023
Inferring China's excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic using online mourning and funeral search volume.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Excess mortality in Mainland China after the end of the Zero COVID policy: A systematic review.Epidemiology and infection · 2026Pooled it
- Do Mobile Phone Surveys Supplement Other Mortality Surveillance Methods? Results From a National Study in Bangladesh.Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH · 2026Article
- Omicron infection alters the profile of organ failure in severe COVID-19: a multicenter study comparing Omicron and the wild-type strain.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Observational
- Sex- and age-specific differences in excess mortality in China during the COVID-19 pandemic: a study based on official vital statistics data.Frontiers in epidemiology · 2025Article
- From COVID-19 to monkeypox: a novel predictive model for emerging infectious diseases.BioData mining · 2024Article
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3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
We construct a mourning and funeral index, using online search volume for "wreath and elegiac couplet", "obituary", "mortuary house", "cinerary casket", "cremation" and "pass away", to infer excess cases of mortality in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 3-month period (December 2022-February 2023) after China ended its Zero-COVID policy, there were around 712 thousand excess cases of mortality. These excess cases of mortality, bench marked against the 2-year period preceding the pandemic, could be directly or indirectly related to COVID-19. During the 35-month Zero-COVID regime (January 2020-November 2022), the excess death toll was a negative 1480 thousand. Overall, by delaying the surge in infections, China might have saved 767 thousand lives. While these estimates are based on various assumptions and can be imprecise, China's COVID-19 experience could reasonably be characterized by a sharp surge in deaths after its departure from Zero-COVID and a steady pattern of lives saved during the Zero-COVID regime.
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