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You keep asserting that Chinese numbers are all faked, and then you want me to prove a negative. > That's what basically every Western country had said. I've

You keep asserting that Chinese numbers are all faked, and then you want me to prove a negative. > That's what basically every Western country had said. I've heard the US and UK governments say this, coincidentally at exactly the moment when they were coming under political pressure because of their insufficient early responses to coronavirus. > US intelligence have publicly stated this. They're not a reliable source of information. > apparently Chinese coronavirus is 100 times less deadly than average... Where are you getting that from? Case fatality rates in China were similar to what was later found in Western countries. > we still don't know how R changed with quarantine methods There's actually very interesting research coming out of China about how different measures affected the reproductive rate of the virus. The Journal of the American Medical Association just published a study on exactly this question.[1] It strikes me as careless to write off this important information so easily. I think the reasons for doing so are primarily political: a lot of people have a hard time accepting that the Chinese government did something effectively, or that it succeeded in suppressing the epidemic where Western governments have so far mostly failed. 1. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.6130 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.6130

LatteLazy 7y ago
I don't think i can convince you that Chinas official numbers are wrong if you the US and UK governments can't. Whatever you think of the US intelligence agencies (I also don't much rate them) the fact they publicly call out China on this should cause you to at least question the numbers. But that's up to you. Sorry if that sounds snippy, I just think we have different views on the Chinese numbers and are unlikely to find a matching set of facts. May I ask, what do you believe the Chinese death toll has been in total so far? The official number is 4642 I think. So if other countries are as efficient as China, this whole pandemic will kill only around 23,000 world wide. Let's up the Chinese are being accurate and we get these excellent numbers! Just for the record, I am actually very happy to concede that the Chinese government has been effective (after the first few weeks of the outbreak at least). I think China has a very effective government and I envy them that. But effective does not mean reliable. Aside from the above and needing to close their wet markets and treat their minories better, I don't have major objections to China...
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  > May I ask, what do you believe the Chinese death toll has been in total so far? The official number is 4642 I think. So if other countries are as efficient as China, this whole pandemic will kill only around 23,000 world wide. Let's up the Chinese are being accurate and we get these excellent numbers! Your reasoning doesn't make any sense. The number of deaths is dependent on the number of people that get sick. China's lower number of deaths simply reflects the stricter containment measures it took to control the spread of the epidemic. The mortality rate among those who get infected is probably similar in China and Western countries. I could imagine that the mortality rate might vary by a factor of a few, based on how many ventilators are available, how overwhelmed hospitals are, and other similar factors. But the percentage of the total population that gets infected can vary by orders of magnitude, based on how aggressively you contain the epidemic. As of yesterday, based on the number of confirmed cases (a lower limit, but it gives you a sense of the differences): * 0.02% of the population of South Korea has contracted the virus. * 0.3% of the population of the United States has contracted the virus. Expecting the same percentage of the population to die in South Korea and the United States would be silly, based on the very different rates of infection. The same goes for China. > I am actually very happy to concede that the Chinese government has been effective (after the first few weeks of the outbreak at least). Then why is it so surprising to you that the extreme public health interventions they took (cordons sanitaires, quarantine centers, strict lock-downs of many cities, regular symptom checks for large swaths of the population, etc.) suppressed the reproductive rate of the virus and drove the number of new infections down drastically?

LatteLazy 7y ago

I don't think i can convince you that Chinas official numbers are wrong if you the US and UK governments can't. Whatever you think of the US intelligence agencies (I also don't much rate them) the fact they publicly call out China on this should cause you to at least question the numbers. But that's up to you. Sorry if that sounds snippy, I just think we have different views on the Chinese numbers and are unlikely to find a matching set of facts. May I ask, what do you believe the Chinese death toll has been in total so far? The official number is 4642 I think. So if other countries are as efficient as China, this whole pandemic will kill only around 23,000 world wide. Let's up the Chinese are being accurate and we get these excellent numbers! Just for the record, I am actually very happy to concede that the Chinese government has been effective (after the first few weeks of the outbreak at least). I think China has a very effective government and I envy them that. But effective does not mean reliable. Aside from the above and needing to close their wet markets and treat their minories better, I don't have major objections to China...

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
> May I ask, what do you believe the Chinese death toll has been in total so far? The official number is 4642 I think. So if other countries are as efficient as China, this whole pandemic will kill only around 23,000 world wide. Let's up the Chinese are being accurate and we get these excellent numbers! Your reasoning doesn't make any sense. The number of deaths is dependent on the number of people that get sick. China's lower number of deaths simply reflects the stricter containment measures it took to control the spread of the epidemic. The mortality rate among those who get infected is probably similar in China and Western countries. I could imagine that the mortality rate might vary by a factor of a few, based on how many ventilators are available, how overwhelmed hospitals are, and other similar factors. But the percentage of the total population that gets infected can vary by orders of magnitude, based on how aggressively you contain the epidemic. As of yesterday, based on the number of confirmed cases (a lower limit, but it gives you a sense of the differences): * 0.02% of the population of South Korea has contracted the virus. * 0.3% of the population of the United States has contracted the virus. Expecting the same percentage of the population to die in South Korea and the United States would be silly, based on the very different rates of infection. The same goes for China. > I am actually very happy to concede that the Chinese government has been effective (after the first few weeks of the outbreak at least). Then why is it so surprising to you that the extreme public health interventions they took (cordons sanitaires, quarantine centers, strict lock-downs of many cities, regular symptom checks for large swaths of the population, etc.) suppressed the reproductive rate of the virus and drove the number of new infections down drastically?