4 ms·

since the criticisms of the Chinese numbers tend to be wild derivations from urns or anonymously sourced US propaganda, yes I am inclined to believe the numbers

since the criticisms of the Chinese numbers tend to be wild derivations from urns or anonymously sourced US propaganda, yes I am inclined to believe the numbers. If you are seeing these articles "pop up" then you read fake news btw

RHSeeger 7y ago
Given the number of times the Chinese government has been shown to lie and actively try to hide dissenting people/information when it tells a story they don't want told... I think it's fair to start from a point of distrust. Sure, it doesn't mean they're lying about the numbers here, but they started out this whole thing by lying about it, by throwing someone (a doctor?) that did speak out in jail.
- zabana 7y ago
  So the US government does not lie then ? I know a few people in Irak,Syria,Lybia,Sudan,Somalia and venezuela who would disagree
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    There is no claim about the US government in the parent comment, so this is entirely beside the point.
- jhpriestley 7y ago
  They did not throw any doctor in jail. I don't trust the Chinese government but I think if they were lying then their opponents would be able to build a more persuasive case by now.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    My apologies, I was mis-remembering. Dr. Li Wenliang was arrested, questioned, and officially reprimanded for warning about the Corona virus outbreak. Looking now, I don't see that he was actually thrown in jail. That being said, it does still speak to the point of the Chinese government and their attempts to control the narrative. At least for me, that makes me start from a point of distrust over anything they say.
happythomist 7y ago
I don't see how obvious discrepancies between the official Wuhan death toll and on-the-ground accounts constitute "wild" derivations. Moreover, Radio Free Asia is quoting named residents, so this cannot plausibly be described "anonymously sourced US propaganda" or "fake news". [1] In general, I think one should be skeptical of any statistics produced by a totalitarian dictatorship for Western consumption. [1] https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020182846.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020...
- jhpriestley 7y ago
  by fake news I was referring to the "disappeared journalists", no credible source has made such allegations
foogazi 7y ago
How can we trust a country that that is willing to block Tiananmen Square or even Winnie the Pooh from social media? I don’t think the great firewall will let the bad news come out
disgruntledphd2 7y ago
I would suggest that you look at the region-level data for China, and just see if it looks anything like the European data. For my money, I don't trust the US intelligence community but I still think that the Chinese numbers are somewhat implausible. The charts show an identical dropoff in almost every region at the same time. We can see, from the European experience, that there's a lag between lockdown and case saturation. This does not appear in the Chinese data, which makes me somewhat sceptical. Note that I'm not an epidemiologist, so it's possible that there's something else driving those numbers that I'm missing.

RHSeeger 7y ago

Given the number of times the Chinese government has been shown to lie and actively try to hide dissenting people/information when it tells a story they don't want told... I think it's fair to start from a point of distrust. Sure, it doesn't mean they're lying about the numbers here, but they started out this whole thing by lying about it, by throwing someone (a doctor?) that did speak out in jail.

zabana 7y ago
So the US government does not lie then ? I know a few people in Irak,Syria,Lybia,Sudan,Somalia and venezuela who would disagree
- jtbayly 7y ago
  There is no claim about the US government in the parent comment, so this is entirely beside the point.
jhpriestley 7y ago
They did not throw any doctor in jail. I don't trust the Chinese government but I think if they were lying then their opponents would be able to build a more persuasive case by now.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  My apologies, I was mis-remembering. Dr. Li Wenliang was arrested, questioned, and officially reprimanded for warning about the Corona virus outbreak. Looking now, I don't see that he was actually thrown in jail. That being said, it does still speak to the point of the Chinese government and their attempts to control the narrative. At least for me, that makes me start from a point of distrust over anything they say.

happythomist 7y ago

I don't see how obvious discrepancies between the official Wuhan death toll and on-the-ground accounts constitute "wild" derivations. Moreover, Radio Free Asia is quoting named residents, so this cannot plausibly be described "anonymously sourced US propaganda" or "fake news". [1] In general, I think one should be skeptical of any statistics produced by a totalitarian dictatorship for Western consumption. [1] https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020182846.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020...

jhpriestley 7y ago
by fake news I was referring to the "disappeared journalists", no credible source has made such allegations

foogazi 7y ago

How can we trust a country that that is willing to block Tiananmen Square or even Winnie the Pooh from social media? I don’t think the great firewall will let the bad news come out

disgruntledphd2 7y ago

I would suggest that you look at the region-level data for China, and just see if it looks anything like the European data. For my money, I don't trust the US intelligence community but I still think that the Chinese numbers are somewhat implausible. The charts show an identical dropoff in almost every region at the same time. We can see, from the European experience, that there's a lag between lockdown and case saturation. This does not appear in the Chinese data, which makes me somewhat sceptical. Note that I'm not an epidemiologist, so it's possible that there's something else driving those numbers that I'm missing.