South China Morning Post is Chinese Communist Party propaganda packaged to sell to gullible foreign devils.
Quite probably but since most media is one propaganda of another it has all to be evaluated to have some truth extracted out of it.
When our own media is focused on a 79 year old communist running for President, you have to dig for any news. Then you have to discern how much is real and how much is bullshit.
In the end you can get a feel for the situation without relying on their numbers.
Or we could listen to US median and the CDC. And then we can all be “shocked” when we realize this “flu” thing might be important.