China: The Folly Of Deception

CHINA

The Folly of Deception

The CIA wants to know how many people really suffered from the novel coronavirus in China.

It’s not like American intelligence agencies were blindsided when the pandemic started. The CIA had been tracking coronavirus outbreaks since November, according to CNN.

But American intelligence analysts believe that local leaders in Chinese cities like Wuhan have been lying about how many infections occurred to avoid running afoul of their communist overseers, the New York Times reported.

Thousands of urns containing the ashes of the dead have been stacked outside funeral parlors in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, suggesting death rates that cast doubts on Chinese statistics. Some estimates based on urn demand and crematorium working hours suggest that the death toll in Wuhan is more than 40,000, according to the Washington Post. China’s official toll for the entire country is just over 3,345.

“Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side, and I’m being nice when I say that,” President Donald Trump said at a press briefing covered by Bloomberg.

Knowing how fast the virus spread in China, how many people acquired it, how they fared and the answers to other questions would greatly help the US and other countries’ responses to the pandemic.

China recently released information on asymptomatic coronavirus patients, for example, providing researchers around the world with important information, NBC reported.

Chinese epidemiologists said asymptomatic transmissions accounted for less than 5 percent of the cases in China. Most transmissions came from folks who seemed sick, they added. But a test from Singapore found that 10 percent of the cases in that smaller country were the result of infections from asymptomatic carriers.

Getting to the bottom of those numbers would help explain why the trajectory of the virus can seem random, why some people fall ill while others who were exposed do not and other vexing challenges.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Cornell University professors Jeremy Wallace and Jessica Chen Weiss agreed that China was underestimating its toll. But they warned that Chinese stats shouldn’t be a scapegoat for any country’s slow response to the virus.

Regardless, it’s no surprise that Chinese data would be suspect. “Bad numbers in China are always underreported, especially when the national image is at stake, and China is now keen to play up its victory against the virus in contrast with the West’s failures,” wrote Foreign Policy magazine.

Meanwhile, China moved to impose restrictions on the publication of academic research on the origins of the novel coronavirus, CNN reported Monday.

“I think it is a coordinated effort from (the) Chinese government to control (the) narrative, and paint it as if the outbreak did not originate in China,” a Chinese researcher told CNN. “And I don’t think they will really tolerate any objective study to investigate the origination of this disease.”

Regardless, the Hill noted that the world would be watching Wuhan closely in the coming weeks as the city emerges from its lockdown.

As anger in the US and elsewhere grow over China’s lack of transparency and its attempts at disinformation, the city could become a showcase of Chinese resilience or a symbol of the folly of deception.