I remember the same exact thing being said about Wuhan. That urns were completely sold out, that the gov't was covering it up, just terrible. To date China insists less than 5,000 people died of Covid, though and all of that was conspiracy talk.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...
so this suggests that its not conspiracy talk as all forms of governing systems around the world experienced the exact same issues
all forms of governing systems had bad data, intentionally hidden data, and inadequate forms of transparency depending on whether the person trusted that institution or whether that person was skeptical of that institution
Sixteen years of preparation, and everything that goes into it, paid off.