Posted on 04/01/2020 12:56:54 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
BEIJING -- Every few days brings another grim milestone in the coronavirus outbreak. First Italy and Spain surpassed China in reported deaths. Then, this week, the U.S. and France did.
But did they really?
Skepticism about China’s numbers has swirled throughout the crisis, fueled by official efforts to quash bad news in the early days and a general distrust of the government. Long lines of people waiting to collect the ashes of loved ones at funeral homes last week revived the debate.
There is no smoking gun pointing to a cover-up by China’s ruling Communist Party. But intentional or not, there is reason to believe that more people died of COVID-19 than the official tally, which stood at 3,312 at the end of Tuesday. The same applies to the 81,554 confirmed cases, now exceeded by the U.S., Italy and Spain.
The public has long distrusted Chinese officials who have a track record of lying and suppressing information about industrial and natural disasters, toxic consumer products and health crises.
Overseas researchers have long been skeptical of Chinese economic reports that show high and unusually stable growth for a developing country, The economy might be up to 21% smaller than official data indicate, according to a 2018 study by Yingyao Hu and Jiaxiong Yao of Johns Hopkins University.
China has played up the efforts of the Communist Party and the sacrifices of medical workers to tackle the crisis, while suppressing reports about hospital overcrowding and reprimanding medical workers for rumor-mongering after they tried to raise the alarm about the emergence of a possible new disease. It’s a formula that invites skepticism, whether the government is telling the truth or not.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Next question!
“What’s known is that every single one of them is a lie.”
period, end of subject.
I’m going to offer a hypothesis.
Early on, in November, when this bug escaped either from the filthy Wuhan wet market, or the Wuhan Virology Institute, it was ordinary, run of the mill communist screwups. The local CCP honchos didn’t want anything “bad” happening on their watch, so they just did what Communists do: they covered it up.
Sometime at the end of November, or early December, the party leadership in Beijing realized they were staring down a major problem. They knew then that the virus was much more lethal, and much more communicative than they would want to report, and they ran some numbers.
End of December was when the CCP national leadership decided it would be in the CCP’s interest to allow this virus to spread to the rest of the world. They would pin the blame domestically on the Wuhan leadership, and use their propaganda apparatus to deflect blame onto the US and others — they decided they could afford to lose a couple of hundred thousand people for the benefits that they anticipated.
What were those benefits?
1. They would see how a contagion, either natural or engineered, could spread using nothing more than ordinary travel and business.
2. They have seen the effect on their primary adversary’s military: at present, a Nimitz class nuclear powered carrier is out of action on Guam due to the virus. China didn’t need to fire a shot.
3. The economies of Europe and the US have been severely damaged. China sees itself in a zero-sum game; if everyone else is weaker, then China is stronger in comparison.
4. They are trying to use this to advance their “belt and road” push into the developing economies of the world. They will probably have some success with this, as their western competitors will be less focused on Africa, the middle east, etc.
5. Plunging oil prices have also dealt a blow to their neighbor and frenemy Russia.
There’s more, but no way was this *all* an accident.
From Carl Marx to the chi-cons.....you can’t trust a commie ( or a democrat )...they all lie!
It is a purely Communist government and system. Everything is covered up reflexively, then the coverup is covered up. No pronouncement can be believed just because it is made.
The “escape” if escape it was, probably involved both. The engineers sell the test animals when they are finished with them to the meat market in order to pae their own incomes a bit. It is a Communist system. Its power is absolute as is, of course, its corruption. Law of Nature.
NO WAY the USA has twice the Covid-19 cases of ginourmous China.....but then they probably are not even testing.
It would be nice to know what reality is over there - but with the CCP running things, finding the truth will be impossible.
If our tests are accurate, their cases have to be 4x what ours are or more.......but then I’m convinced our TESTED numbers are not half of the actual number of those infected here....maybe 1/3........which puts the death count in a much different light......
One thing about this crisis - I truly believe NO ONE really knows what is going on, and with the internet, the possibilities and the lies are both almost infinite........
china never had one death as a result of the flu and doesn't need any assistance from another country.
china lies.
Good analysis. Agree, perhaps with a few timeline changes - I think the ChiComs knew earlier.
The real question is does the devastation to the global health and economy caused by the Wuhan Virus compel the west to abandon or diminish China as a superpower wannabe? I think not. The world is addicted to China.
We’re screwed.
Probably true, but not a certainty. Time to put what pressure we can on, and keep it on.
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