Exclusive Prediction

Pandemic Turning Point in European Countries and the U.S. is Expected to Arrive This Week / Early April

HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, March 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An", the "Company" or the "Group", HKEX: 02318; SSE: 601318) announced that according to an analysis by Ping An Macroeconomic Research Institute and Ping An Healthtech Research Institute, Europe and the U.S. could see the turning point, peak of new confirmed cases per day, of the COVID-19 pandemic by this week / early April.

Ping An's disease transmission analysis focuses on seven of the most affected countries, considering factors such as quarantine controls, public sentiment analysis, population density, medical resources and size of the elderly population.

The analysis suggests that different countries will reach the turning point at different times: Italy – Mar. 21-25, which is probably at the peak period now; Germany – Mar. 27-31; France – Mar. 27-31; Spain – Mar. 28-Apr. 1; U.S. – Mar. 30-Apr. 3; and Iran – Mar. 31-Apr. 4. It appears South Korea has already passed the peak point, as has China, where disease prevention and control efforts are shifting to preventing imported cases from the U.S., Iran and European countries.

1.      Analysis on disease transmission model

Most countries will reach peak in new cases around March 27-April 4, according to Ping An's analysis. Most of the countries are likely to see a slowdown in the rate of new cases each day between Mar. 21-Apr. 4, according to Ping An's analysis. Italy appears to have had the peak of new reported cases on March 22, and has now started to decline. The U.S. is forecast to reach the peak of new reported cases per day between Mar. 30-Apr. 3.

Late controls can result in infection rates 10 times higher than countries with early controls. The number of people affected in a country depends critically on how quickly the separation/control measures are implemented. We see three models:

1) Early control models, such as South Korea, which is expected to have 0.02% of population being affected.

2) Mid-term control models, such as the U.S., France and Germany, which are expected to have 0.1% of population affected, i.e. about 300K people in U.S.

3) Late control models, such as Italy and Spain, which are expected to have more than 0.2% of population affected. 

Fatality rates range significantly between 0.9% to 14%, depending on the level of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. While the COVID-19 virus itself is much less deadly than even SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which appeared in 2003) or MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which appeared in 2012), about 20% of diagnosed cases require hospitalization, so the number of ICU beds is critical to determining the mortality rate.