[Excubiae]

First of all: No one knows what the real numbers are. The government of China certainly doesn’t know.

True. But the government of China has a much, much better idea than anyone else. They are going to have a ballpark guess that will not be as ludicrous as the official numbers (they are almost certainly instituting random testing across all provinces, they will also have a good idea of how many bodies the crematoriums are processing, etc.).

They won't know the exact number (they don't even know the exact number of SARS victims, even now). But they are going to have a very good idea of how many digits are in those numbers.

[Ancesthntr]

“But they are going to have a very good idea of how many digits are in those numbers.”

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So they will be able to narrow down the effects of this disease to the nearest 10x. Wow, that’s pretty impressive and comforting! /s