After four months of nationwide lockdown, cardiovascular deaths decreased by 6.2%! Analysis of causes of death among 300 million Chinese people

After the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19), the Chinese government immediately took strict measures to seal off cities and communities to curb the spread of the virus. In addition to controlling COVID-19, has this brought much benefit to the Chinese people?

On September 2, Academician Gao Fu of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Researcher Zhou Maigeng of the Center for Chronic Diseases, and Professor He Guojun of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology published a study on the preprint version of medRxiv to answer this question.

The study showed that the city and community lockdown not only did not cause the additional health losses expected by the public, but also, during the 40-day lockdown period that the study focused on, for causes of death other than COVID-19, more than 32,000 deaths may have been avoided nationwide due to improved air quality, traffic control, and a significant reduction in face-to-face interactions among residents.

The study showed that after excluding the Wuhan area, the lockdown reduced the total number of deaths other than COVID-19 by 4.9%.

Among them, the number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases decreased by 6.2%, the number of deaths from accidental injuries decreased by 9.2%, and the number of deaths from non-COVID-19 pneumonia decreased by 14.3%.

However, deaths from malignant tumors, chronic respiratory diseases and other diseases were not significantly affected.

Figure 1 The impact of city/community lockdown measures on different causes of death

Figure 2 Estimated number of non-COVID-19 deaths averted by city/community lockdown measures

The research results suggest that after the resumption of work and production, scientific management of air pollution and traffic will remain a key focus of my country's public health.

For policymakers around the world, the findings can help them better understand the costs and benefits of lockdowns in cities and communities as they respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study used surveillance data from the National Cause of Death Surveillance System covering approximately 300 million Chinese people from January 1 to March 14, 2020, and estimated the impact of the lockdown policy on mortality rates from causes other than COVID-19 by using the double difference method and event analysis method.

Source: Jinlei Qi, Dandan Zhang, Xiang Zhang, et al. Do Lockdowns Bring about Additional Mortality Benefits or Costs? Evidence based on Death Records from 300 Million Chinese People.Medrxiv.doi: 10.1101/2020.08.28.20183699.

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