Damning: New Evidence Suggests the Chinese Government Is Hugely Underreporting Coronavirus Death Toll

Townhall ^ | 03/31/2020 | Guy Benson

[SeekAndFind]

A few points, right off the top: First, the US response to coronavirus has been poor in some aspects, better in others, and is complicated by an uneven patchwork of state and local policies. Some of the failures can be laid at the feet of the federal government -- including within both the Trump administration and previous administrations -- while other levels of government also have mistakes to answer for. Second, whenever you see a graph purporting to demonstrate that America's reaction to the pandemic has been the worst in the world, proceed with extreme skepticism. Some of these graphics fail to adjust for population size (see this helpful explainer), and almost all of them take "official" statistics from nations like China and Iran at face value. The numbers from these secretive regimes cannot and must not be believed. Consider the juxtaposition between the claim of zero new cases in Wuhan for nearly an entire week running and other emerging evidence. Bogus data:

NEW: China's city of Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus was discovered, has reported no new cases for a sixth straight day, as the number of global infections surged past 724,000 https://t.co/rrsZx6VpLn— Axios (@axios) March 30, 2020

Suppressed reality:

As authorities lifted a two-month coronavirus lockdown in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, residents said they were growing increasingly skeptical that the figure of some 2,500 deaths in the city to date was accurate. Since the start of the week, seven large funeral homes in Wuhan have been handing out the cremated remains of around 500 people to their families every day, suggesting that far more people died than ever made the official statistics. "It can't be right ... because the incinerators have been working round the clock, so how can so few people have died?" an Wuhan resident surnamed Zhang told RFA on Friday. "They started distributing ashes and starting interment ceremonies on Monday," he said. Seven funeral homes currently serve Wuhan -- a huge conurbation of three cities: Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang. Social media users have been doing some basic math to figure out their daily capacity, while the news website Caixin.com reported that 5,000 urns had been delivered by a supplier to the Hankou Funeral Home in one day alone -- double the official number of deaths. 

Some social media posts have estimated that all seven funeral homes in Wuhan are handing out 3,500 urns every day in total. Funeral homes have informed families that they will try to complete cremations before the traditional grave-tending festival of Qing Ming on April 5, which would indicate a 12-day process beginning on March 23. Such an estimate would mean that 42,000 urns would be given out during that time. Another popular estimate is based on the cremation capacity of the funeral homes, which run a total of 84 furnaces with a capacity over 24 hours of 1,560 urns city-wide, assuming that one cremation takes one hour. This calculation results in an estimated 46,800 deaths. A resident of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, said most people there now believe that more than 40,000 people died in the city before and during the lockdown.

It's impossible to know exactly what is happening on the ground in China because the communist government is actively lying, expelling foreign journalists, and "disappearing" its critics -- including medical professionals -- thus deterring truth-telling and whistle-blowing:

Just two weeks ago the head of Emergency at Wuhan Central hospital went public, saying authorities had stopped her and her colleagues from warning the world. She has now disappeared, her whereabouts unknown. #60Mins pic.twitter.com/3Jt2qbLKUb— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) March 29, 2020

It is long past time for the American media to stop regurgitating Chinese propaganda, which exploits journalists' desire to cast President Trump's efforts in the worst possible light. The World Health Organization also appears to be at least somewhat compromised. The facts are clear: The disease did originate in China. It was covered-up by their government, harming the global response. And that cover-up is ongoing. Their formal tallies of infections and deaths are fiction, and their clumsy (yet successful) goodwill PR theatrics are also garbage:

Hey, I'm noticing a pattern. pic.twitter.com/hsVs4MjjLD— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 28, 2020

It seems the British government is seeing things pretty clearly on this front:

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government is said to be furious over China's handling of the novel coronavirus, with one British official quoted on Sunday saying Beijing would face a "reckoning" once the COVID-19 crisis was over. UK government officials are accusing China of spreading disinformation about the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in its borders, the Mail on Sunday reports. The newspaper says scientists have told Johnson that China could have downplayed its number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus "by a factor of 15 to 40 times." China had reported 81,439 cases at the time of writing...The newspaper quoted three UK officials, who all reported fury within Johnson's government. "It is going to be back to the diplomatic drawing board after this," one said. "Rethink is an understatement." The second unnamed official said "there has to be a reckoning when this is over," while the third said "the anger goes right to the top."

Their Prime Minister and top Health official have each tested positive for the virus. President Trump was exactly right to accurately pin blame on Beijing, the woke sensitivities of some critics notwithstanding. But this sort of false moral equivalence lets China off the hook, and he should know better:

Trump, when asked about Chinese misinformation about coronavirus, on Fox News:

"They do it and we do it... Every country does that."— Toluse Olorunnipa (@ToluseO) March 30, 2020

I'll leave you with a stunningly ignorant, credulous hot take from a New York Times reporter, followed by actual data from the country that has been most successful at suppressing the disease, as opposed to information:

US outbreaks may be too far along for the South Korea model to work. The only thing left is the China model. It’s the only known success at subduing a full-blown epidemic. Instead of working with Beijing on finding lessons, the US is scapegoating China to deflect political blame.— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) March 30, 2020

Never been more jealous of a curve in my life. Man they nailed it.
Via Time. https://t.co/sktEp8booM pic.twitter.com/soPhg4iceJ— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) March 30, 2020

[poinq]

I don’t think we can use Japan, South Korea or Taiwan as examples. They are all Island nations. And they have a good handle on the source of their outbreaks.

The US and Europe have open boarders. And they have many ports and various points of human to human contact with China and other infected countries. The ports and colleges are the two areas that have produced the most widely spread infections. Germany, and France are probably more like America than other countries.

America is doing fine. We are not set up for this at all. But like with a war. We adapt quickly. America is based on chaos not perfection. We identify adjust react and adjust again. This is how we win wars. Its how we run our economy and increase production. Perfection assumes that we are very good at one thing. America is good at adapting to the newest thing. Like any of our wars, we start out with missteps then we get the right people in place with the right equipment, and we kick ass. That is what is going on here.

[dfwgator]

I don’t think we can use Japan, South Korea or Taiwan as examples. They are all Island nations. And they have a good handle on the source of their outbreaks.

Plus, they are not multi-cultural nations.

[gdc61]

Well, let me say this. There had better be a pandemic of fired and arrested deep state inbeds in the CDC and the FDA as well as finishing the cleanup of the state and justice dept.

the slow roll routine by these worthless partisan bureaucrats of everything, has got to be exposed to the entire country. Any media outlet found to have participated in this attempted takedown need to be stripped of there broadcast licenses and thrown into prison.

[rolling_stone]

..Chinese = Saving Face is EVERYTHING..

well they are two faced and have lost all credibility nothing left for them to save.

[alternatives?]

“They pushed out foreign journalists. Doesn’t that make their “news” pretty suspect?”

You don’t think our journalists are suspect? Do you think our journalists are honest on some stories but not others? How do you know which?

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

How many versions of this urns and cell phone stories are there going to be?

[Fightin Whitey]

Good time to move some overstock.

[Kozak]

Let’s start with the 1 Trillion+ in Treasuries they own.
Cancel them as partial reparation for damages.

[upchuck]

Nice posting job. Preserving formatting, links, etc. Good for you!

[Retain Mike]

How deadly is the coronavirus? It’s still far from clear https://spectator.us/deadly-coronavirus-still-far-clear-covid-19/

The above article by Dr. John Lee explains how easy it is to reduce the number virus deaths. The problem is that you have to sign up for a free month in order to look at the article a second time, so I would send a copy of the text I copied to anyone who wanted one. In this case the applicable paragraph is as follows:

“ But there’s another, potentially even more serious problem: the way that deaths are recorded. If someone dies of a respiratory infection in the UK, the specific cause of the infection is not usually recorded, unless the illness is a rare ‘notifiable disease’. So the vast majority of respiratory deaths in the UK are recorded as bronchopneumonia, pneumonia, old age or a similar designation. We don’t really test for flu, or other seasonal infections. If the patient has, say, cancer, motor neurone disease or another serious disease, this will be recorded as the cause of death, even if the final illness was a respiratory infection. This means UK certifications normally under-record deaths due to respiratory infections.”

The Chinese end up solving their problem by simply reporting in an often accepted manner.

[BradyLS]

The one I know best never met a bus they didn’t try to throw someone under.

[BradyLS]

The Japanese like to subtly put that point across when discussing social problems afflicting various countries.

[redinIllinois]

.

[2CAVTrooper]

“To put it another way, IF China’s statistics are true, then they clearly have a vaccine, and if they have a vaccine then it’s very likely they had one all along (i.e., they didn’t develop it in 3 months), which means that the release of the virus was likely intentional. Again, this is all predicated on the official Chinese new case/death statistics being accurate.”

I’d like to see the infection rate involving their military and CCP leadership.

This would show if they have a vaccine.

[agatheringstorm]

“I’d like to see the infection rate involving their military and CCP leadership.
This would show if they have a vaccine.”

Good point, but we’ll never get that (dis)information.