How much can we trust the data coming out of China?
Then I would imagine each country will be gathering a lot more data as it spreads further in another generation.
TL;DR: The beginning was not great, but it seems better now.
I'm more worried about Iran than China.
Unfortunately it isn't. They are trying to put people back to work and reopen trade because of the damage it is doing to their economy, and massaging the numbers is one crucial element of making that happen.
They are not in a vacuum. Business and travel will resume only if the situation is demonstrably resolved, or close to.
They cannot afford to fake it and re-open factories and lift quarantines just for mass contamination to occur, which would be very public and screw them internationally for good.
Edit: Everyone, from all impacted countries say that they are still open for business because they don't want everything to stop and people to be spooked. The country is not all under quarantine. That has nothing to do with faking numbers.
Maybe instead of declaring something "FUD", which to me sounds like you're saying I'm here in bad faith, consider that I meant what I said.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NCoV20200209_Hubei_Chin...
/s
Maybe, but it's important to never underestimate the value regimes like China put on image. Parallels can be drawn to how the USSR downplayed the Chernobyl incident and how many more lives were affected by their nationalistic pride.
> The total number of flu deaths last year was 144, compared with 56 in 2016 and 41 in 2017.
A recent article in The Global Times (a tabloid owned by the CCP's official newspaper) gives similar figures.[2]
So China lies about flu deaths by 2-3 orders of magnitude. Who knows how much they're juking the stats on covid-19 deaths.
1. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201902/22/WS5c6f11daa3106c65...
I encourage you to read U.S. CDC’s explanations on how they estimate flu hospitalizations and deaths. Only a small percentage is ever reported even in the U.S.
My point is that if the China CDC is counting covid-19 cases the way they count flu cases, that means the actual numbers are much worse. They underreport the number of flu cases by a factor of 50. eg: They claim 700,000 cases in 2018, which is less than 0.1% of the population. (In developed countries, around 5% of the population gets the flu each year.) Then they juke the stats to claim fewer flu deaths than there actually are (144 deaths instead of 150,000).
I don't think the numbers for covid-19 are off by two orders of magnitude, but my point is that the China CDC loves to publish numbers that amount to outright lies.
Yes, and that’s a ridiculous “point” however you interpret it.
Also it's clear by your mockery that you don't want to discuss this in good faith.
Edit: And to be absolutely clear, being suspicious of the accuracy of the data is one thing and I have no objection to that; saying the stats are off because “they are counting covid-19 cases the way they count flu cases” only shows you’re uninformed about the topic.