| Type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Data and analytics (health) |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Founders | Rasmus Bech Hansen |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom[1] |
| Website | www |
Airfinity Ltd is a UK-based data and analytics company. It specialises in monitoring and forecasting trends in the global disease and public health industries.[2]
History
Airfinity was founded in 2015 by Rasmus Bech Hansen,[3][4] and is one of the 515 companies in which the UK government's Future Fund retains equity.[5]
In 2020, the company became one of the most quoted data companies in the media for its COVID-19 reports,[4][1] having been described as doing "the best modelling of the pandemic data" by professor Sir John Bell.[6]
In July 2022, Airfinity's analysis on COVID-19 vaccines estimated AstraZeneca's vaccine Vaxzevria saved 6.3m lives worldwide in its first year of usage[7] and Pfizer/BioNTech's Comirnarty saved 5.9 million lives in the same time period.[8][9]
On 25 December 2022, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would no longer be sharing data on COVID-19 infections.[10] After this, Airfinity became the leading source of COVID-19 infection and death estimates in China.[1][11]
Based on regional modelling, Airfinity estimated between 1.3 and 2.1 million people would die in the first wave of infections.[12][13] The firm's epidemiological forecast predicted cases would peak at 4.8 million a day and deaths would peak at 9,000 a day.[14][15][16]
In April 2023, The Rhodes Trust hosted a policy summit where experts discussed learnings from the pandemic. Speakers included Sir John Bell, Sir Tony Blair, George Fu Gao, Richard Hatchett, and Andrew Pollard. During the summit, Airfinity's CEO Rasmus Bech Hansen presented the company's forecast on the likelihood of another pandemic, which suggested that there was a 27.5% of a COVID-like pandemic occurring in the next decade.[17][18]
References
- 1 2 3 "How a little-known London start-up predicted China's deadly Covid outbreak". Telegraph UK. Sarah Newey. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
- ↑ "Why now is the time to stock up on UK small caps". FT Advisor. Ken Wotton and Tom Makey. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
- ↑ "AIRFINITY LIMITED - Company number 09502389". Find and update company information.
- 1 2 "Meet Europe's fastest-growing bootstrapped companies". Sifted. Maija Palmer and Riddhi Kanetkar. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
- ↑ "Companies in which the Future Fund has an equity interest". British Business Bank.
- ↑ "The World Tonight". BBC. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
- ↑ "UK Biological Security Strategy (HTML)". Government UK.
- ↑ "Which covid-19 vaccine saved the most lives in 2021?". Economist. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
- ↑ "Rapid-response manufacturing of adenovirus-vectored vaccines". Nature. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
- ↑ "China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention". National Health Commission (China).
- ↑ "China has stopped publishing daily COVID data amid reports of a huge spike in cases". NPR. Robbie Griffiths. Retrieved 25 December 2022.
- ↑ "China's 'zero-COVID' limits saved lives but no clear exit". AP News. Maria Cheng & Carla K. Johnson. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
- ↑ "Factbox: How many people might die, and why, under relaxed China COVID curbs". Reuters. Brenda Goh. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
- ↑ "Airfinity CEO Says Covid Peak Could Go Much Higher". Bloomberg. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
- ↑ "China Covid: experts estimate 9,000 deaths a day as US says it may sample wastewater from planes". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
- ↑ "China COVID deaths accelerate to 9,000 a day - UK research firm Airfinity". Reuters. Ryan Woo and Joe Cash. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
- ↑ "Rhodes Policy Summit: Creating a Positive Legacy from the Pandemic". The Rhodes Trust. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
- ↑ "Disease forecasters are convinced there's a 27% chance of another COVID-like pandemic within 10 years—but experts believe there's a silver bullet". Fortune. Eleanor Pringle. Retrieved 18 April 2023.