March 03rd: China Curve: Infection Inflection?

China’s infection growth rate has now been below 1% d/d for ten consecutive days; implying the infection curve is potentially near peak point. expect the infection curve to progress into the de-growth stage, perhaps inflecting this week. forecast below 400 daily infection additions from this week. As the first wave dissipates, we think tracking the net infection* trend in China becomes relevant. Risks include a second wave of infection, resulting in a second higher total infection toll peak in May (pessimistic scenario). Outside China, Korea’s infection toll reached 4,212 cases as of 0:00, 2-Mar, surpassing our ~3,000 confirmed cases by mid-week forecast. We do not change our Korea forecast of a peak by mid to end March at ~10k patients as active medical tests suggest better control of infection. Italy’s/ Iran’s infected toll stood at 1,694/978; +566/+385 from the previous day.

Figure 1: COVID-19: Net infection toll under three scenarios (number of people, week)