The story is implausible because it rests on top-secret data about the "real" number of cases being shared with Tencent News and making it all the way to the lo

The story is implausible because it rests on top-secret data about the "real" number of cases being shared with Tencent News and making it all the way to the lowly data-entry operator updating their website. All those disease-tracking websites in China I'm aware of link to a long list of local government press releases and seem to simply aggregate the numbers in those. https://xw.qq.com/act/qgfeiyan https://xw.qq.com/act/qgfeiyan https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia I don't believe they have privileged access to government secrets. If the government wants to hide something, the last thing they're going to do is share that data with a news org.