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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBloomberg: China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says
Source: Bloomberg News
April 1, 2020, 8:15 AM MST
The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret and declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that Chinas public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that Chinas numbers are fake.
The report was received by the White House last week, one of the officials said.
The outbreak began in Chinas Hubei province in late 2019, but the country has publicly reported only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares to more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.
Communications staff at the White House and Chinese embassy in Washington didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.
While China eventually imposed a strict lockdown beyond those of less autocratic nations, there has been considerable skepticism of Chinas reported numbers, both outside and within the country. The Chinese government has repeatedly revised its methodology for counting cases, for weeks excluding people without symptoms entirely, and only on Tuesday added more than 1,500 asymptomatic cases to its total.
Stacks of thousands of urns outside funeral homes in Hubei province have driven public doubt in Beijings reporting.
Deborah Birx, the State Department immunologist advising the White House on its response to the outbreak, said Tuesday that Chinas public reporting influenced assumptions elsewhere in the world about the nature of the virus.
The medical community made -- interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected, she said at a news conference on Tuesday. Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain.
China is not the only country with suspect public reporting. Western officials have pointed to Iran, Russia, Indonesia and especially North Korea, which has not reported a single case of the disease, as probable under-counts. Others including Saudi Arabia and Egypt may also be playing down their numbers
A little more at link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,406 posts)And our government certainly downplayed and concealed the extent of the problem and has been mismanaging it since the beginning. But hey, sure, let's scapegoat China. Note: I'm not saying China is blameless in all of this but Republicans and Trump have most definitely been trying to scapegoat China for our internal failures to contain and mitigate the crisis here.
SWBTATTReg
(22,112 posts)rump. They knew something was coming. They did nothing. Period. Nothing.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)repressive state with a centralized authoritarian government? And you throw Democrats in with Republicans as "government"?!!!
Don't.
If you want to blame our problems on people who enable evil by denying good, though, go right ahead. I do.
Twisting the crimes of others into reasons to attack ourselves is how we get Republicans controlling government. There aren't enough knuckle-dragging RW voters, and it couldn't happen without great assistance from those who ignore reality to insist there's nothing to vote for. And worse, shockingly worse and inexcusably, try to convince others in self-fulfilling dystopian attitudes.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,406 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)redirecting the crimes of others into accusations against us? Whether "us" is America in discussing the world or Democrats in discussing our own nation?
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,406 posts)was based more on how Trump/GOP are trying to scapegoat China to defend Trump and pointing out how badly Trump has mismanaged things here. There are several Republicans Senators whom are spending their time on this more than trying to help Americans.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)I'm on board with specifics.
But my own reaction to this OP was still a huge "of course" about CHINA. Only wish I could have bet the bank on that one. I am dismayed at how experts may have been forced to make critical decisions based on data they must have strongly suspected was false.
But on to us, I'm also strongly wondering if any such decisions in our nation weren't made by Republicans who knowingly took advantage of falsely low data as a means of continuing to block adequate action. That would fit the pattern of obstruction that they've established beyond any doubt.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,406 posts)and it won't be pretty.
I was NOT implicating Democrats in this mess AT ALL.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)underpants
(182,762 posts)Proud Liberal Dem
(24,406 posts)spanone
(135,816 posts)"Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. We have a tremendous relationship with China, which is a very positive thing. Getting along with China, getting along with Russia, getting along with these countries. ....don trump 1/31/20
underpants
(182,762 posts)who apparently never thought to himself Self, have you considered that you might possibly be lied to? Self, you have 17 intelligence agencies at your disposal maybe you could look into that
spanone
(135,816 posts)unblock
(52,195 posts)republicans will use it to accuse china of not giving us enough warning, even though they did warn us and donnie ignored them.
but yeah, there's no way the virus could possibly be that well contained. even if it were completely stamped out in hubei, there would still be tons of cases outside that province, in the more rural areas of china that didn't get hit initially, etc.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)genxlib
(5,524 posts)But Trump apparently didn't think it was needed.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S
Every excuse about this should be followed with a question about why this position was not needed
uponit7771
(90,335 posts)Roland99
(53,342 posts)ALL of China is only about 2k more cases than NY state has.
Yeah....I trust their numbers.
genxlib
(5,524 posts)So a strict quarantine is quick to implement and strictly enforced.
I don't doubt for a minute that they had better luck in bending the curve than western societies.
Within 3-4 weeks after that kind of lock down, I would expect the numbers to be drastically reduced.
They could well be lying but I don't think you can compare them one to one.
treestar
(82,383 posts)They are so closed a society.
crickets
(25,962 posts)could have had boots on the ground worldwide and a game plan ready that could have helped stem the tide in China and elsewhere and would be keeping data as accurate as possible, for science.
Just sayin'.
scrabblequeen40
(334 posts)than a full assumption of responsibility for this clusterfuck from the orange anus. period.
Bad Thoughts
(2,522 posts)We've known the Chinese government was downplaying the outbreak, but we knew that in January.
raccoon
(31,110 posts)woodsprite
(11,911 posts)stillcool
(32,626 posts)we don't have that anymore.
Response to Mike 03 (Original post)
Anon-C This message was self-deleted by its author.
greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)because leaking the contents of classified reports is a federal crime.
Tra la.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,900 posts)"It's not our fault", the Trump misadministration.
JCMach1
(27,555 posts)up