Table 3. Cost of COVID-19 according to cost component and COVID-19 diagnosis, China, January–March 2020.
| Cost component | Cost, million ¥ |
Total cost, million ¥ (million US$) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People not considered to have had COVID-19 | Close contacts diagnosed as COVID-19 negative | Suspected cases diagnosed as COVID-19 negative | Confirmed cases surviving |
Confirmed cases died | |||||||
| Non-severe | Severe | Critical | |||||||||
| Routine health care | |||||||||||
| Identification and diagnosis | N/A | 95.16 | 13.30 | 33.91 | 5.74 | 0.27 | 2.32 | 150.70 (21.81) | |||
| Medical observationa | N/A | 261.85 | 17.50 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 279.35 (40.43) | |||
| Inpatient care | N/A | N/A | 13.46 | 314.00 | 169.70 | 46.79 | 405.31 | 949.26 (137.37) | |||
| Medicines | N/A | N/A | N/A | 22.18 | 377.07 | 30.92 | 267.86 | 698.03 (101.02) | |||
| Treatment for pre-existing conditions | N/A | N/A | N/A | 2.20 | 45.43 | 2.37 | 20.54 | 70.54 (10.21) | |||
| Follow-up for recovered cases | N/A | N/A | N/A | 1.45 | 0.25 | 0.01 | N/A | 1.71 (0.25) | |||
| Subtotal | N/A | 357.01 | 44.26 | 373.74 | 598.19 | 80.36 | 696.03 | 2 149.59 (311.08) | |||
| Non-routine health careb | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 2 106.81 (304.89) | |||
| Quarantine for test-negative cases | N/A | 803.17 | 33.41 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 836.58 (121.07) | |||
| Productivity loss | 2 638 379.36 | 2 635.33 | 169.86 | 328.63 | 62.10 | 3.41 | 26.51 | 2 641 605.20 (382 287.29) | |||
| Total (societal cost) | 2 638 379.36 | 3 795.51 | 247.53 | 702.37 | 660.29 | 83.77 | 722.54 | 2 646 698.18 (383 024.34)c | |||
COVID-19: coronavirus disease 2019; N/A: not applicable; US$: United States dollars;
¥: Chinese yuan.
a Medical observation of close contacts and/or suspected cases before receiving a diagnosis of COVID-19.
b Includes risk subsidy for health-care staff and emergency funds for construction of temporary emergency buildings and non-routine procurement of additional medical supplies and equipment.
c Column total. We could not assign the cost of non-routine health care to any specific individual patient group so we only report the total cost of non-routine health care in the last column; therefore, the cost of non-routine health care is not reflected in the total societal cost for each patient subgroup (last row).