Are the Chinese Lying about their COVID-19 Fatalities?

 

Are the Chinese Lying about their COVID-19 Fatalities?

Three weeks ago the total US COVID 19 deaths passed the 400,000 milestone; the race is on towards the half a million mark.  Grim, indeed!

Meanwhile, China is reporting a total of 4,636 COVID related deaths so far.  How come China has less than one-hundredth of the total US deaths--even when China is allegedly the birthplace of the new Corona virus; even when China has over three times the population of the US; and even when China has almost a five-fold population density than the US?

The usual answer you hear in the west is that the Chinese are lying.  That the Chinese are under-reporting their COVID-19 deaths.  So, how many dead people is China hiding?  Ignoring the arrival time of the virus, if the US with a population of 328 million has 468,000 deaths (as of February 9, 2021), what should be the estimate of the COVID-19 fatalities in China, with a population of 1.4 Billion? Two million dead people?

I do not consider myself an expert on China, but if multiple trips to a country can give one a slightly better knowledge of that country than the understanding of an average person who never went there, I may claim that advantage.  

As compared to the country’s eastern part, western China is a sparsely populated area.  Back in 1995, when the city of Kashgar was still not connected to the Chinese national railroad system, I took buses to travel from the Pakistan-China border to the big city of Urumqi.  As we passed through small towns and vast expanses of wilderness, I wondered what an essentially one-party government was capable of doing with the people it considered the ‘enemies of the state.’  I saw a lot of empty land to build concentration camps on.

Yes, China can possibly do secretive things in a remote area, say in its western region or in deep south, closer to the borders of the Indo-Chinese countries, but COVID-19 is a different animal.  This ailment is a contagious respiratory disease, transmitted from one person to another. COVID-19 is supposed to be a high population density disease, an urban phenomenon. We expect it to be a New York disease, a London disease, a Calcutta disease, a Beijing and Shanghai disease.  

China because of its ever-increasing involvement in the global trade is constantly evolving. The world is deeply connected with today’s China and especially with its large urban centers.  You cannot have over 50 international airlines flying out of the big Chinese cities and have no knowledge of large number of people mysteriously disappearing from the urban centers.

May be the Chinese COVID-19 deaths are really that low.  May be instead of doubting the Chinese numbers we should be asking: Why are the US COVID-19 deaths so high?

Tags: The deceptive Chinese COVID-19 statistics

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COVID-19: The game of numbers 

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COVID-19, COVID-20, COVID-21