this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
460 points (77.5% liked)
Memes
45655 readers
1747 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/world/asia/china-covid-data-toll.html
https://time.com/6247534/china-covid-death-toll-underreporting/
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/asia-pacific/2023/07/18/china-deletes-data-on-covid-19-deaths/
Here's three articles on the messing with COVID numbers and hiding true death counts. It's incredibly easy to hide true death tolls in such a large country that's effectively cut off from the rest of the world's news. If you control the data being pushed out and there's a severe lack of checking if they're true or not, it's incredibly easy to hide deaths, either misreporting them like you mentioned or just not reporting them at all. Current US death rates from COVID are 1 million, while investigations form the NYT reports at least triple that in China, if not more. Again, failed state under an oppressive and deadly regime.
Manipulating COVID death counts isn't disappearing the actual deaths themselves. We know deaths still happened, like the Time article said "China’s True COVID Death Toll Estimated To Be in Hundreds of Thousands" - so let us assume that's completely true!
1.4 billion people live in China. The fact that only a few hundred thousand died is a miracle that almost no other country can match when you actually start comparing numbers directly. China outperformed everyone else when you measure how many people died against how many people didn't die. If China just let er rip like America did, over 6 million would have died. Think about that.
You misread the article, that hundreds of thousands statistic is only for the most recent batch of COVID. Also, if China and the US are comparable, it would be about 4 million. If China was comparable to another country, like say Ireland, it would be around 2.5 million. My figure of about 3 million seems accurate enough for this argument. Your devotion to this regime is unfortunate, you should consider reevaluating your decisions and take a fresh look at the awfulness that happens to the people of China everyday.
I can't read the NYT article because it's behind a paywall lol
Gotta love western "freedom of press"