GinFizz

[quote from deleted post redacted]

It is hard not to be skeptical about numbers released by the Chinese authorities given the initial cover-up and criminal negligence (regardless of the authoritarian control aspect).

In terms of the numbers regarding new cases, the truth is really quite binary - either the virus is out there in wild - in which case it is spreading and numbers will be increasing all the time, or the measures are having an effect - and numbers of cases are decreasing (whether or not to almost or actually zero, as in the case of Beijing the last two days, matters little here in regard to this form of argument).

Given the way that this virus has shown so far to spread it would be pretty much impossible to hide the former - and that certainly fits in with information I am getting from the grapevine here in Beijing.

In terms of mortality and morbidity, if this were a situation confined only to China, there may be an incentive to cover up the numbers. But now that cases are reported in many countries it will become very obvious if the mortality/morbidity figures have been massaged in any way.

It is of course possible that in Wuhan there have been a larger number deaths, with some hidden to cover-up mis-management of treatment. But in the context of your skepticism this is probably appropriate, as I am sure you are more interested in numbers that reflect clinical outcomes related to the virus rather than to bungled medical care. At the outset of the viral outbreak, numbers probably were covered up - maybe that contributes to the "various adjustments in counting" that have happened.

I'll just add that my wife (PhD in pharmacology from one of the top medical schools in Beijing) has a pretty wide network of classmates, and gets information from these sources regularly (some things get deleted, but people are smart enough not to just forward text-based messages as that triggers the interest of the censoring algorithms).

Actually while we were away on holiday in Bangkok at the end of December she also was forwarded a warning message about some "new SARS cases in China". She also kindly pointed out last night that my response to that was "well that's hard to believe" followed by a dismissive comment. It seems it may be a while before I live that one down...