Fig. 5: Projected healthcare demand and number of deaths for combined mitigation strategies under optimistic VE scenario in China from March 2022 to September 2022.
a, Peak hospital (non-ICU) bed occupancy, with red numbers indicating where peak hospital bed demand is lower than the bed capacity for respiratory illness in China. b, Peak ICU bed occupancy, with red numbers indicating where peak ICU bed demand is below the existing ICU capacity in China. c, Cumulative death tolls, with red numbers indicating where the number of deaths is below the annual influenza-related excess death toll in China (that is, 88,000 deaths37). The circular-Manhattan plot from the innermost concentric circle to the outermost concentric circle indicates the combinations of adopting different intervention measures: homologous (inactivated) or heterologous (subunit) booster regimen; whether the approximately 52 million people aged ≥60 years who have not been vaccinated yet as of 17 March 2022 are vaccinated or not; receiving antiviral therapies with an efficacy of 80% or 89% in preventing hospitalization and death; 50% or 100% symptomatic cases receiving an antiviral therapy; Rt representing varying intensity of NPIs. Rt = 3.9 corresponds to the scenario in the absence of strict NPIs. Data are presented as median of n = 200 simulations.
