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Dr. Tedros has faced a lot of criticism for strongly praising China's handling of the epidemic over the past few months. There is now growing belief that China

Dr. Tedros has faced a lot of criticism for strongly praising China's handling of the epidemic over the past few months. There is now growing belief that China is under-reporting. Primary evidence for this is that the stats fit too neatly to a curve extrapolated from previous releases. Would actual deaths occur so tidily? Secondary evidence is that China's response seems significantly larger than expected based on the statistics they are releasing. Judge by actions not words, and all that jazz. This doesn't conclusively prove tampering, but at minimum suggests there is some rate-limiting factor influencing the figures. Shortage of test kits or test lab throughput, perhaps. Either way, if China is under-reporting it puts the rest of the world at a disadvantage information-wise, and that leads to inadequate preparation and response. Assuming this is true, Dr. Tedros is in a political pickle. True transmission and mortality rates will become apparent once the virus spreads in countries that can't or won't falsify figures. On the basis of all of the above, which I admit is by no means conclusively proven, this Tweet makes a lot of sense. It provides a stepping-stone in messaging from fawning over the CCP to providing more aligned-with-reality messaging on the developing pandemic. When the dust settles, I wouldn't be surprised if any stats differences between China and what we see in the rest of the world is pinned on 'mutation'. A more generous take is that Dr. Tedros had to gush about China to avoid non-cooperation, but is now trying to move past that and back into a messaging space where the WHO can best prepare the rest of the world to respond appropriately. Disclaimer: I'm not an expert and I spend far too much time in the sewers of the Internet to have an objective opinion. This is just a summary of the more plausible speculation I'm seeing.

baq 7y ago
there's no other way he could get china to cooperate. it was the correct play.
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  Yes, and on top of that there's not cooperating and there's not cooperating. He still has to walk that tightrope even if he knows China will never fully cooperate.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  China's still not cooperating. It didn't work.
  - baq 7y ago
    this twitter thread was also about getting WHO feet on the ground as he literally waved them off a couple posts earlier. it's a win in my book.
- arkitaip 7y ago
  It was a terrible move that has jeopardized the lives of millions and further corroded the WHO's reputation. The very trustworthiness of the organization is being questioned so much so that people are dismissing official communiques as outright lies.
  - baq 7y ago
    orthogonal. terrible but still correct. alternatives were worse.
mikechen233 7y ago
China defined what the meaning for each of the reported stats. Infected means it's tested positive under a RNA ptpcrt test. I don't think at this point, china is fudging the number. But because of this definition a lot of cases are not being tested because of a lack of medical resources especially in wuhan. So the real cases in the public is far greater than 40000. They also released information on what they learned medically about the virus and the real situation in wuhan. I seen the videos posted on FB and Twitter and I think the government is not hiding the "the bad news" so just following these source already paints a virus that is highly contagious and difficult to diagnose. Their actions are formed based on a lot of information not captured by the reported numbers and actions are more forward looking as they are trying to anticipate how the virus will develop. The numbers are laggards. So I believe we should all look at the actions instead of the number. If the situation does not warrent lock down on travel and public gathering in many cities, which destroys the economy, why would they do it? Now the situational assessment is two parts, one is the dangerous of the virus, second the societal conditions in China that encourage the virus spreading. It might be that for the same virus it might not be as transmittable in other countries. So other countries shouldnt copy Chinese response directly.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
>>Dr. Tedros has faced a lot of criticism for strongly praising China's handling of the epidemic over the past few months. What doesn't work for day to day life (dictatorship), works great in such cases. Complain about quarantines if you dare. China is the one really affected so whatever they're doing, so they have every incentive to do it right. I see falsifying as a possible way not to spread panic but that's white /gray lie, all countries should prepare for the worst.
- baq 7y ago
  yeah except it doesn't because people run away screaming from the hospital when they get diagnosed for fear of quarantine facilities and conditions therein. (reports from HK hospitals, don't have source at hand, sorry)
dcolkitt 7y ago
Let me preface by saying I'm not an expert at all. But as an outside observer just watching the stats, here's my biggest reason for being suspicious regarding the number. Right now there's five other provinces (Guangdong, Zhejiang, Henan, Hunan, and Anhui) with more than 800 confirmed cases. For context that's the level Hubei (Wuhan) was at three weeks ago. To contextualize when Wuhan had O(1000) cases, before full quarantine, the infection was growing at a rate of 50-100% per day. In contrast all of the aforementioned provinces are now currently keeping growth below the target of 10% per day. Now obviously, the infection control process will improve over time as we learn more about transmission. But none of those other provinces are in full quarantine like Wuhan. And yet, every single one of them is doing a remarkably better job than Wuhan was at the comparative point in the infection. In fact they're all doing even better than Wuhan did after it locked down to full quarantine. That kind of rapid improvement in disease transmission control over the span of a few weeks is hard to believe. Every single province seems to be hitting their targets on every single day. Compared to a few weeks ago, the public health improvements are almost too large to be believable. Most likely, I'm being paranoid, but it does smell a little fishy.
- Joe-Z 7y ago
  I'm not exactly sure what you're hinting at here: Is it that China is underreporting new infections for the neighboring provinces now, or that they mis-reported stats of Hubei before? Anyways, I must say I find it a little disconcerting to see such a statement (which I can only describe as fear-mongering) from the director of the WHO on a public plattform. Does he not have the means to contact officials directly and tell them what they should prepare for? His "call for calm" is 3 tweets in ffs
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    He's suggesting the other provinces are getting underreported.
- ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
  You are not alone - users on reddit and weibo have also accused China of falsifying figures. One reddit user fit a quadratic curve to the infection rate some time ago and used it to predict the number of infections. https://old.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/f0anox/uantimonic_accurately_predicts_the_numbers_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/f0anox/uantimonic_a...
rasz 7y ago
WHO needs to somehow convince China to release real number of deaths for the past 12 months in Wuhan. This would get the ball rolling.
jialutu 7y ago
Are we then going to start talking about how the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreaks were massively under-reported? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Comparisons_to_other_pandemics_and_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Comparisons_... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22738893-estimated-global-mortality-associated-with-the-first-12-months-of-2009-pandemic-influenza-a-h1n1-virus-circulation-a-modelling-study/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22738893-estimated-global-mo... I don't see any of the scares or complaints of under-reporting from back then. So what's the difference here, the fact that the disease originated from China? Seems pretty racist to me.
- jpd- 7y ago
  Criticism of the Chinese government is not racism. They have a history of controlling the flow of information both in and out of the country; any suggestion they are controlling the flow of information about this virus is rooted in established historical facts.
  - jialutu 7y ago
    I find people saying things like "criticism of the Chinese government is not racism" is akin to things like "I am not racist because I have black friends". Anywho, I gave you an actual link of a pubmed article about the H1N1 2009 outbreak being under-reported, yet the criticism is once again about China controlling information flow. Where is the criticism of under-reporting from the US and Mexico H1N1 outbreak from 2009 and 2010 and controlling the information flow? I don't remember any of that, do you?
fit2rule 7y ago
What we are in danger of witnessing, is a priority inversion - when we should just have two measures of 'global panic'. The priority is, of course, to stop a 21st century plague from happening. When/if such an event occurs, it will have a vast effect on the daily life of millions and millions of people, whether they are infected or in danger, or not. Social fallout from mass panic is almost as dangerous as an actual viral plague could be. They've happened in the past, because people weren't prepared - so sure, we should not be lying about it. There is responsibility to have a survivable world, after such events occur - governments plan for recovery too, not just prevention and control - so the panic of the global populace, at scale, is one thing that can have a massive effect on whether there is a society to rebuild 'after the cure is found'. The point is that folks should be observant that there are two massively dangerous potential events occurring here: 1. Coronavirus, and 2. Agitprop/Counterprop being used to re-shuffle the world economic scene, prematurely as it seems in some cases, but preparedly in other cases, too.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Its remarkable to me that in WWII the British plan for post-apocalyptic recovery was, to put up signs that read "Keep calm and carry on". Which, because it was Britain, would very probably have worked.
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    Because Brits can read?
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      Because an exhortation to stay calm and carry on, would likely work on a British population.
infinity0 7y ago
Is someone able to properly translate this graph? https://img1.dxycdn.com/2020/0210/392/3395802964777411656-13.. https://img1.dxycdn.com/2020/0210/392/3395802964777411656-13.... Seems like someone is estimating 250k "potential" cases? Google Translate isn't very clear here.
sebazzz 7y ago
I wonder what would happen if the virus arrives in a densely and arguably less developed nation like India. That would probably a disaster. Apparently not many travel from China to India.
- MagnumOpus 7y ago
  One saving grace is that coronaviruses (like the common cold or SARS) do much worse in the heat because they denature easily. Which is why SARS died off once summer came -- and which would help reduce the spread and severity of a pandemic in India or sub-saharan Africa.

baq 7y ago

there's no other way he could get china to cooperate. it was the correct play.

vanderZwan 7y ago
Yes, and on top of that there's not cooperating and there's not cooperating. He still has to walk that tightrope even if he knows China will never fully cooperate.
tomohawk 7y ago
China's still not cooperating. It didn't work.
- baq 7y ago
  this twitter thread was also about getting WHO feet on the ground as he literally waved them off a couple posts earlier. it's a win in my book.
arkitaip 7y ago
It was a terrible move that has jeopardized the lives of millions and further corroded the WHO's reputation. The very trustworthiness of the organization is being questioned so much so that people are dismissing official communiques as outright lies.
- baq 7y ago
  orthogonal. terrible but still correct. alternatives were worse.

mikechen233 7y ago

China defined what the meaning for each of the reported stats. Infected means it's tested positive under a RNA ptpcrt test. I don't think at this point, china is fudging the number. But because of this definition a lot of cases are not being tested because of a lack of medical resources especially in wuhan. So the real cases in the public is far greater than 40000. They also released information on what they learned medically about the virus and the real situation in wuhan. I seen the videos posted on FB and Twitter and I think the government is not hiding the "the bad news" so just following these source already paints a virus that is highly contagious and difficult to diagnose. Their actions are formed based on a lot of information not captured by the reported numbers and actions are more forward looking as they are trying to anticipate how the virus will develop. The numbers are laggards. So I believe we should all look at the actions instead of the number. If the situation does not warrent lock down on travel and public gathering in many cities, which destroys the economy, why would they do it? Now the situational assessment is two parts, one is the dangerous of the virus, second the societal conditions in China that encourage the virus spreading. It might be that for the same virus it might not be as transmittable in other countries. So other countries shouldnt copy Chinese response directly.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

>>Dr. Tedros has faced a lot of criticism for strongly praising China's handling of the epidemic over the past few months. What doesn't work for day to day life (dictatorship), works great in such cases. Complain about quarantines if you dare. China is the one really affected so whatever they're doing, so they have every incentive to do it right. I see falsifying as a possible way not to spread panic but that's white /gray lie, all countries should prepare for the worst.

baq 7y ago
yeah except it doesn't because people run away screaming from the hospital when they get diagnosed for fear of quarantine facilities and conditions therein. (reports from HK hospitals, don't have source at hand, sorry)

dcolkitt 7y ago

Let me preface by saying I'm not an expert at all. But as an outside observer just watching the stats, here's my biggest reason for being suspicious regarding the number. Right now there's five other provinces (Guangdong, Zhejiang, Henan, Hunan, and Anhui) with more than 800 confirmed cases. For context that's the level Hubei (Wuhan) was at three weeks ago. To contextualize when Wuhan had O(1000) cases, before full quarantine, the infection was growing at a rate of 50-100% per day. In contrast all of the aforementioned provinces are now currently keeping growth below the target of 10% per day. Now obviously, the infection control process will improve over time as we learn more about transmission. But none of those other provinces are in full quarantine like Wuhan. And yet, every single one of them is doing a remarkably better job than Wuhan was at the comparative point in the infection. In fact they're all doing even better than Wuhan did after it locked down to full quarantine. That kind of rapid improvement in disease transmission control over the span of a few weeks is hard to believe. Every single province seems to be hitting their targets on every single day. Compared to a few weeks ago, the public health improvements are almost too large to be believable. Most likely, I'm being paranoid, but it does smell a little fishy.

Joe-Z 7y ago
I'm not exactly sure what you're hinting at here: Is it that China is underreporting new infections for the neighboring provinces now, or that they mis-reported stats of Hubei before? Anyways, I must say I find it a little disconcerting to see such a statement (which I can only describe as fear-mongering) from the director of the WHO on a public plattform. Does he not have the means to contact officials directly and tell them what they should prepare for? His "call for calm" is 3 tweets in ffs
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  He's suggesting the other provinces are getting underreported.
ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
You are not alone - users on reddit and weibo have also accused China of falsifying figures. One reddit user fit a quadratic curve to the infection rate some time ago and used it to predict the number of infections. https://old.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/f0anox/uantimonic_accurately_predicts_the_numbers_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/f0anox/uantimonic_a...

rasz 7y ago

WHO needs to somehow convince China to release real number of deaths for the past 12 months in Wuhan. This would get the ball rolling.

jialutu 7y ago

Are we then going to start talking about how the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreaks were massively under-reported? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Comparisons_to_other_pandemics_and_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Comparisons_... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22738893-estimated-global-mortality-associated-with-the-first-12-months-of-2009-pandemic-influenza-a-h1n1-virus-circulation-a-modelling-study/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22738893-estimated-global-mo... I don't see any of the scares or complaints of under-reporting from back then. So what's the difference here, the fact that the disease originated from China? Seems pretty racist to me.

jpd- 7y ago
Criticism of the Chinese government is not racism. They have a history of controlling the flow of information both in and out of the country; any suggestion they are controlling the flow of information about this virus is rooted in established historical facts.
- jialutu 7y ago
  I find people saying things like "criticism of the Chinese government is not racism" is akin to things like "I am not racist because I have black friends". Anywho, I gave you an actual link of a pubmed article about the H1N1 2009 outbreak being under-reported, yet the criticism is once again about China controlling information flow. Where is the criticism of under-reporting from the US and Mexico H1N1 outbreak from 2009 and 2010 and controlling the information flow? I don't remember any of that, do you?

fit2rule 7y ago

What we are in danger of witnessing, is a priority inversion - when we should just have two measures of 'global panic'. The priority is, of course, to stop a 21st century plague from happening. When/if such an event occurs, it will have a vast effect on the daily life of millions and millions of people, whether they are infected or in danger, or not. Social fallout from mass panic is almost as dangerous as an actual viral plague could be. They've happened in the past, because people weren't prepared - so sure, we should not be lying about it. There is responsibility to have a survivable world, after such events occur - governments plan for recovery too, not just prevention and control - so the panic of the global populace, at scale, is one thing that can have a massive effect on whether there is a society to rebuild 'after the cure is found'. The point is that folks should be observant that there are two massively dangerous potential events occurring here: 1. Coronavirus, and 2. Agitprop/Counterprop being used to re-shuffle the world economic scene, prematurely as it seems in some cases, but preparedly in other cases, too.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Its remarkable to me that in WWII the British plan for post-apocalyptic recovery was, to put up signs that read "Keep calm and carry on". Which, because it was Britain, would very probably have worked.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Because Brits can read?
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Because an exhortation to stay calm and carry on, would likely work on a British population.

infinity0 7y ago

Is someone able to properly translate this graph? https://img1.dxycdn.com/2020/0210/392/3395802964777411656-13.. https://img1.dxycdn.com/2020/0210/392/3395802964777411656-13.... Seems like someone is estimating 250k "potential" cases? Google Translate isn't very clear here.

sebazzz 7y ago

I wonder what would happen if the virus arrives in a densely and arguably less developed nation like India. That would probably a disaster. Apparently not many travel from China to India.

MagnumOpus 7y ago
One saving grace is that coronaviruses (like the common cold or SARS) do much worse in the heat because they denature easily. Which is why SARS died off once summer came -- and which would help reduce the spread and severity of a pandemic in India or sub-saharan Africa.