7 ms·

Only a thousand daily cases in a country with a population of 1G? That's either very impressive, or very impressively underreported. For comparison, Belgium cur

by elric 5y ago

Only a thousand daily cases in a country with a population of 1G? That's either very impressive, or very impressively underreported. For comparison, Belgium currently has 10 times as many daily new cases, with a population that's 100 times smaller (and no lockdown).

user_named 5y ago
- elric 5y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with that statement, but it'd be nice if you backed it up with some actual examples.
  - user_named 5y ago
    - CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
      Or were they one of the few countries not underreporting?
    - elric 5y ago
      > Did they not tell you that in Belgium? What's up with this pointless snarkiness? You're making it sound like the machinations of an evil propaganda machine, when in reality Belgium has been quite good at overreporting covid stats. Not sure which stats you're referring to as being "some of the worst in the world".
      - user_named 5y ago
        You question the reporting in a country, I do the same and you get upset. Belgium has been among the top in every chart I've seen. I can't imagine those charts not having been reported on in Belgium.
        NicoJuicy 5y ago
        Someone else already mentioned overcounting and you are just ignoring it. https://m.dw.com/en/belgiums-coronavirus-overcounting-controversy/a-53660975 https://m.dw.com/en/belgiums-coronavirus-overcounting-contro... Read up about it, before saying they did "terrible". Statistics in this case are a simplified form of complex policies, ... Countries overcounting vs. undercounting should be the top 1 variable to be aware of. Ps. I'm from Belgium, I'm very much aware of all statistics and the controversy overcounting causes.
      - brabel 5y ago
        COVID deaths per-capita were really high in Belgium and it was one of the worst in the world until recently, but it seems it's now just about average compared to southern European countries, but way above most of its neighbouring countries. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
        jacquesm 5y ago
        NL is undercounting by 30 to 40% in the official figures. Eventually this gets fixed due to excess death figures being far more accurate but those don't make it into the various COVID statistics reports. So you'll hear one official institution in NL reporting a cumulative tally of about 22600 at the moment, and another reporting 35000 or thereabouts. (good article about this in Dutch https://www.ntvg.nl/artikelen/covid-19-oversterfte-de-maat https://www.ntvg.nl/artikelen/covid-19-oversterfte-de-maat )
    - bjourne 5y ago
      Belgium's total excess mortality for 2020-21 is actually quite low: https://i.redd.it/pqr32tp3yfi81.jpg https://i.redd.it/pqr32tp3yfi81.jpg
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Belgium did overreporting, so they had 2x the COVID counts vs. Other countries just because of that ( every untested death was assumed a COVID death). Most people that say Belgium did "terrible" don't even know about that.
imiric 5y ago
And 8K deaths since 2020: https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn How the WHO can report these numbers with a straight face is beyond me.
- atian 5y ago
  You can try entering Beijing from the outside and see how difficult it is.
- interpenetrate 5y ago
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway290 5y ago
    Is Uyghur incarceration also a conspiracy theory, or does CCP lie about that but never about COVID? Lockdown now is not exclusive with false case and death numbers.
    - interpenetrate 5y ago
      That's not very fun. You're supposed to tell me a convincing story about why the lockdown is happening. Someone quickly replied to me about how the present lockdown is specifically intended to cause inflation in the U.S. Unfortunately they were too embarrassed or didn't want to face the next logical question (because conspiracy theories are never finished), so they quickly deleted the comment. But at least they tried instead of gesturing vaguely to the CCP and letting ideological obviousnesses do the heavy lifting.
      - throwaway290 5y ago
        Maybe the virus spilled into population centers too close to party leadership. Maybe it indeed got to the point where it is difficult to hide. I don't know. My point is that it's on you (and WHO) to explain trusting data supplied by a country with a long history of supplying false data (in other words, believe a known liar).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
roenxi 5y ago
China is engaging in some combination of not measuring/not reporting/lying on the subject of COVID infections. Ourworldindata claims [0] that their case counts are comparable to New Zealand. There needs to be a much, much more powerful argument than "they've got CCTV and powerful bureaucrats!" before anyone can take those figures seriously. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases
- limoce 5y ago
  Why the number of confirmed cases shown in [0] is even smaller than that reported by China CDC? It doesn't make sense.
- goldname 5y ago
  I don't believe any of that crap. Have you even read that comment about being locked in a building because someone tested positive?
- Derek0116 5y ago
  Prejudice. The current number of COVID cases in China is real. BTW, I think, in HN and reddit, sometimes we demonize the Chinese government too much and live in an "Information Cocoon Room" more or less.
  - orestarod 5y ago
    Do you really believe the measures of China lead to 1000 times less infected people than what we see in the rest of the world?
    - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
      Absolutely. Chinese society has been largely open for the last 2 years, yet hospitals have not been overwhelmed, and hardly anyone even knows anyone who's gotten CoVID-19. The measures that public health authorities in Chinese cities take to squash outbreaks are highly visible. If there's a single known case in a city, the building where the person lives will be locked down, the neighborhood (or even the entire city) will be PCR tested, and everyone who's been near the infected person will be quarantined. These measures work.
ZYinMD 5y ago
It's funny you call it 1G instead of 1B. I've never seen people do that. Now I think about it, why is GB not called BB? Btw, it's 1.5G, not 1G. Btw, the Chinese government lies about many things but the COVID case numbers weren't lies, at least no lies after March 2020.
- sgjohnson 5y ago
  > Now I think about it, why is GB not called BB? Because it doesn’t scale. Giga is the metric prefix for “times billion”. However, large (and small) numbers don’t end there. What about Quadrillion and Quintillion? What about milli and micro?
  - ZYinMD 5y ago
    OK, so what you mean is, million and mega happen to share the initial, and trillion and tera happen to share too, but billion and giga happen to not share an initial.
    - 8note 5y ago
      Also, the metric prefixes are used cross language, and the ms, bs, and ts aren't the same cross language
    - tester89 5y ago
      Yeah, might’ve been a coincidence
- th3iedkid 5y ago
  > the Chinese government lies about many things but the COVID case numbers weren't lies, at least no lies after March 2020. Why would that be?
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    I would clarify that numbers won't be grossly exaggerated. Because can't disguise compounding numbers for more than a few cycles. Over reporting GDP by 2% consistently for couple decades and real economy would be only 2/3 size as projected. Under report covid for a few days and you have millions of cases instead of hundreds. Also PRC epidemic controls / contact tracing require accurate reporting to even work. The outbreak numbers since March 2020 have been so small that large discrepancies would be hard to hide.
powerapple 5y ago
It is real, the country has been covid free since late 2020. How can you under report virus being covid free? The title is very misleading. It is not China locks down, it is a few cities will have affected communities locked down. Mostly massive testing, contract tracing and then resume to normal once cases are back to normal. My parents are in affect areas, people are less worries about the cases due the minor effect on new variant.
- hnfong 5y ago
  Unless Mainland China is doing something drastically different to what we're doing here in Hong Kong, I wouldn't be so sure.
  - powerapple 5y ago
    I don't know what Hong Kong is doing, my guess is that many professionals do not want to follow what China is doing, instead, they would like to follow what UK is doing. That's a huge difference. As I said, you cannot hide virus, hide the transmission, especially during zero-covid period, before the mild variant omicron dominated the world. I don't know how long China can continue this zero-covid policy, that's a question, people are less worried about the virus now, I hear the same from my parents. At least it is working now. Maybe not in Hong Kong.
  - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
    They are doing something drastically different. Hong Kong has been very wary of entering a strict lockdown during this outbreak, and HK government officials have admitted that lack of public acceptance severely limits the actions they can take.

by elric 5y ago

user_named 5y ago

elric 5y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with that statement, but it'd be nice if you backed it up with some actual examples.
- user_named 5y ago
  - CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
    Or were they one of the few countries not underreporting?
  - elric 5y ago
    > Did they not tell you that in Belgium? What's up with this pointless snarkiness? You're making it sound like the machinations of an evil propaganda machine, when in reality Belgium has been quite good at overreporting covid stats. Not sure which stats you're referring to as being "some of the worst in the world".
    - user_named 5y ago
      You question the reporting in a country, I do the same and you get upset. Belgium has been among the top in every chart I've seen. I can't imagine those charts not having been reported on in Belgium.
      - NicoJuicy 5y ago
        Someone else already mentioned overcounting and you are just ignoring it. https://m.dw.com/en/belgiums-coronavirus-overcounting-controversy/a-53660975 https://m.dw.com/en/belgiums-coronavirus-overcounting-contro... Read up about it, before saying they did "terrible". Statistics in this case are a simplified form of complex policies, ... Countries overcounting vs. undercounting should be the top 1 variable to be aware of. Ps. I'm from Belgium, I'm very much aware of all statistics and the controversy overcounting causes.
    - brabel 5y ago
      COVID deaths per-capita were really high in Belgium and it was one of the worst in the world until recently, but it seems it's now just about average compared to southern European countries, but way above most of its neighbouring countries. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        NL is undercounting by 30 to 40% in the official figures. Eventually this gets fixed due to excess death figures being far more accurate but those don't make it into the various COVID statistics reports. So you'll hear one official institution in NL reporting a cumulative tally of about 22600 at the moment, and another reporting 35000 or thereabouts. (good article about this in Dutch https://www.ntvg.nl/artikelen/covid-19-oversterfte-de-maat https://www.ntvg.nl/artikelen/covid-19-oversterfte-de-maat )
  - bjourne 5y ago
    Belgium's total excess mortality for 2020-21 is actually quite low: https://i.redd.it/pqr32tp3yfi81.jpg https://i.redd.it/pqr32tp3yfi81.jpg
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Belgium did overreporting, so they had 2x the COVID counts vs. Other countries just because of that ( every untested death was assumed a COVID death). Most people that say Belgium did "terrible" don't even know about that.

imiric 5y ago

And 8K deaths since 2020: https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn How the WHO can report these numbers with a straight face is beyond me.

atian 5y ago
You can try entering Beijing from the outside and see how difficult it is.
interpenetrate 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway290 5y ago
  Is Uyghur incarceration also a conspiracy theory, or does CCP lie about that but never about COVID? Lockdown now is not exclusive with false case and death numbers.
  - interpenetrate 5y ago
    That's not very fun. You're supposed to tell me a convincing story about why the lockdown is happening. Someone quickly replied to me about how the present lockdown is specifically intended to cause inflation in the U.S. Unfortunately they were too embarrassed or didn't want to face the next logical question (because conspiracy theories are never finished), so they quickly deleted the comment. But at least they tried instead of gesturing vaguely to the CCP and letting ideological obviousnesses do the heavy lifting.
    - throwaway290 5y ago
      Maybe the virus spilled into population centers too close to party leadership. Maybe it indeed got to the point where it is difficult to hide. I don't know. My point is that it's on you (and WHO) to explain trusting data supplied by a country with a long history of supplying false data (in other words, believe a known liar).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

roenxi 5y ago

China is engaging in some combination of not measuring/not reporting/lying on the subject of COVID infections. Ourworldindata claims [0] that their case counts are comparable to New Zealand. There needs to be a much, much more powerful argument than "they've got CCTV and powerful bureaucrats!" before anyone can take those figures seriously. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases

limoce 5y ago
Why the number of confirmed cases shown in [0] is even smaller than that reported by China CDC? It doesn't make sense.
goldname 5y ago
I don't believe any of that crap. Have you even read that comment about being locked in a building because someone tested positive?
Derek0116 5y ago
Prejudice. The current number of COVID cases in China is real. BTW, I think, in HN and reddit, sometimes we demonize the Chinese government too much and live in an "Information Cocoon Room" more or less.
- orestarod 5y ago
  Do you really believe the measures of China lead to 1000 times less infected people than what we see in the rest of the world?
  - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
    Absolutely. Chinese society has been largely open for the last 2 years, yet hospitals have not been overwhelmed, and hardly anyone even knows anyone who's gotten CoVID-19. The measures that public health authorities in Chinese cities take to squash outbreaks are highly visible. If there's a single known case in a city, the building where the person lives will be locked down, the neighborhood (or even the entire city) will be PCR tested, and everyone who's been near the infected person will be quarantined. These measures work.

ZYinMD 5y ago

It's funny you call it 1G instead of 1B. I've never seen people do that. Now I think about it, why is GB not called BB? Btw, it's 1.5G, not 1G. Btw, the Chinese government lies about many things but the COVID case numbers weren't lies, at least no lies after March 2020.

sgjohnson 5y ago
> Now I think about it, why is GB not called BB? Because it doesn’t scale. Giga is the metric prefix for “times billion”. However, large (and small) numbers don’t end there. What about Quadrillion and Quintillion? What about milli and micro?
- ZYinMD 5y ago
  OK, so what you mean is, million and mega happen to share the initial, and trillion and tera happen to share too, but billion and giga happen to not share an initial.
  - 8note 5y ago
    Also, the metric prefixes are used cross language, and the ms, bs, and ts aren't the same cross language
  - tester89 5y ago
    Yeah, might’ve been a coincidence
th3iedkid 5y ago
> the Chinese government lies about many things but the COVID case numbers weren't lies, at least no lies after March 2020. Why would that be?
- dirtyid 5y ago
  I would clarify that numbers won't be grossly exaggerated. Because can't disguise compounding numbers for more than a few cycles. Over reporting GDP by 2% consistently for couple decades and real economy would be only 2/3 size as projected. Under report covid for a few days and you have millions of cases instead of hundreds. Also PRC epidemic controls / contact tracing require accurate reporting to even work. The outbreak numbers since March 2020 have been so small that large discrepancies would be hard to hide.

powerapple 5y ago

It is real, the country has been covid free since late 2020. How can you under report virus being covid free? The title is very misleading. It is not China locks down, it is a few cities will have affected communities locked down. Mostly massive testing, contract tracing and then resume to normal once cases are back to normal. My parents are in affect areas, people are less worries about the cases due the minor effect on new variant.

hnfong 5y ago
Unless Mainland China is doing something drastically different to what we're doing here in Hong Kong, I wouldn't be so sure.
- powerapple 5y ago
  I don't know what Hong Kong is doing, my guess is that many professionals do not want to follow what China is doing, instead, they would like to follow what UK is doing. That's a huge difference. As I said, you cannot hide virus, hide the transmission, especially during zero-covid period, before the mild variant omicron dominated the world. I don't know how long China can continue this zero-covid policy, that's a question, people are less worried about the virus now, I hear the same from my parents. At least it is working now. Maybe not in Hong Kong.
- DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
  They are doing something drastically different. Hong Kong has been very wary of entering a strict lockdown during this outbreak, and HK government officials have admitted that lack of public acceptance severely limits the actions they can take.