It was a bit jarring to read such careful analysis and then toward the end read that China was an example of keeping Covid out, I wonder if they fudged things enough to throw this analysis as well?
The continued credulity of the west despite all of the lying China has done is astoundingly stupid. Anyone with an ounce of understanding of the culture and the government, particularly Xi’s government, was laughing at the Chinese figures and demanding on the ground access early on to determine what was actually happening.
Many academics wanting to follow the data don’t understand that. And so we copied a fake solution because of fake data and threw out decades of pandemic response research and planning to pretend we could contain something that was obviously out of control and clearly on the path to being endemic after March 2020.
How did China hide what was actually happening from foreigners at the 172 embassies in Beijing, and the 200+ consulate generals/consulate offices in the rest of the country, plus all the foreign business people who are in China long term?