
China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says - pl0x
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says
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shadowprofile77
While im extremely skeptical of China's numbers (by default it's safer to
assume that all known case counts in any country are well off the real numbers
of cases that haven't been counted) China did use far harsher measures to stop
spread (the biggest, most total quarantine of hundreds of millions of people,
applied in just weeks), while the U.S has so far not done that or anything
close to it, and was very slow even to react to the extent that it has so far.

This could thus partly be a case of accusing the other side of lying because
you look so bad that blame needs to be spread around even if they did things
differently to mitigate their situation better (maybe).

Also, China published the vast majority of major case growth/death figures
before they (or anyone else really) knew just how bad things would get in
Italy, Spain and other countries, yet their mortality rates more or less match
a certain global average (they're in fact a bit worse than average) so why
would they have lied in such a specific but also partially statistically
realistic way? Why not publish less cases and lower death figures if they were
going to lie their asses off anyhow?

I don't think they're telling the truth, especially about total known cases
and total deaths, but maybe they didn't conceal quite as badly as claimed, and
harsher measures partly explain the differences in numbers between the U.S and
China.

Most of all though, it's important to know if whatever concealment they did
also distorted: 1. claimed mortality RATE, and 2. if the spread of the virus
has been more or less contained finally, as they claim it has. These two are
the most important things, more important than actual numbers being off by
some margin or another.

~~~
notechback
If they do collect actual numbers but report much lower numbers it should not
be too difficult to give realistic ones. Right now the Chinese state media is
making a huge effort to paint the virus as a 'foreign' issue, claiming that
there are now no new local infections but rather just infections brought in
from abroad. This is rather obviously absurd, but it's also obviously an
effort to shift blame while claiming a high ground. The Chinese leadership can
pretend competence and blame others for any fault - pretending that it wasn't
them that started the whole mess to begin with.

India (of all countries) had a severe virus outbreak a few years back -
immediately local doctors reported it, containment measures were in place and
the case numbers stayed somewhere around two hundred. China had the same, but
arrested whistleblowers, officially denied everything and only admitted things
when the scale and spread was so bad that it couldn't anymore be denied. Still
we don't know the true scale and numbers and never will.

~~~
xster
How is it "obviously absurd"? We've been the ones lamenting that China's been
going full dystopia "welding people inside apartments" all the way back in
January.

Also for those who read beyond the title:

"the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White
House, according to three U.S. officials.

The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and
they declined to detail its contents."

And here I am still waiting for Bloomberg to write the other half of their
supermicro chip story.

------
mullingitover
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

It's a little too convenient that the US blew so many weeks of lead time in
getting mass testing running. We don't need to suppress information about our
virus outbreak when we simply don't have data about it. We literally would've
had a better response if the CDC didn't exist at all and individual states
weren't impeded from running their own tests. The Seattle Flu Study was
explicitly forbidden from testing for coronavirus, and their refusal to obey
that order on ethical grounds was probably the reason that they're not
suffering New York's fate right now.

Not to absolve China here, but it's a classic sin of nations to hide epidemics
(see "Spanish Flu") and they probably aren't even the most egregious sinners
today.

~~~
notechback
How come European Union countries, South Korea and Taiwan weren't hiding the
issue then? They were unaware of the scale for a while, but even Italy did not
try for a minute to hide it. Hiding or denying an epidemic is really something
that only dictatorships do.

~~~
mullingitover
I think the degree to which countries hide their numbers matches the degree to
which they're authoritarian (or simply corrupt). North Korea sets the bar,
with "zero" cases. Russia has suspiciously low numbers. Japan, surprisingly,
is not doing well in this area. I think Japan early on was hell-bent on having
their olympics happen regardless of the consequences, and their people are
going to suffer for it.

~~~
type0
> Russia has suspiciously low numbers.

The virus simply freezes and won't infect in Russia /s

~~~
blaser-waffle
I'm in Canada and we have surprisngly few cases where we are, relative to the
population size (Edmonton). We've had snow and a cold snap, which is
definitely keeping people inside.

I don't doubt that Russia is downplaying their cases, but I can absolutely
believe that the cold is making people self-isolate, and thus keep infection
down.

------
NicoJuicy
Not even that, but the WHO was forced to give critical information to China
and was not allowed to communicate with Taiwan.

Taiwan handled it very well luckily! They never had any information from China
and that helped them more than us who had "access" to that information,
probably faulty info none the less.

What an absurd situation.

It's becoming more clear that the WHO was misled by the "positive news" from
China and based a lot of guidance on that.

While the Western world gets infected, the virus gets real numbers eg.
Infection rate, mortality, ...

If it wasn't clear that Taiwan is a seperate country before, it should be now.

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haltingproblem
As a modeler, in a field unrelated to pandemics and epidemiology, my first
reaction was that the estimates of CRF, IFR and R0 are going to be wrong.
Which in turn is going to produce wrong estimates from all the models.

First, they did not shutdown the wet markets which they should have right
after SARs, then they concealed the outbreak for weeks or months and now they
are lying about the numbers.

How can the Chinese government keep doing this and think they are going to
keep getting away with it? They are willing to invest 100s of billions in One
Belt One Road to project power but this takes down their credibility by many
notches for vast swathes of people around the globe.

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LorenPechtel
"Conceal" implies intent--while I do not believe the Chinese numbers I do not
think it's malicious, but rather an overwhelmed system. We are seeing the same
thing everywhere the system is getting hit hard enough--patients are dying
without ever being tested, and they're only testing the people at the
hospital, thus missing most all the mild cases.

The only places I would trust the numbers are South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore
and Israel.

~~~
notechback
China is literally claiming zero new infections while reports from the
affected regions tell a very different story. How is that not an obvious
effort to conceal the issue?

~~~
yfzhou
What reports?

China reported 36 new cases yesterday, all but one are people returning from
overseas caught under quarantine, and whenever there is sporadic local
transmission, they tighten control in that area obviously while the country at
large has returned to work.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3078010/chin...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3078010/chinese-
county-goes-coronavirus-lockdown-country-tries-get-back)

------
tibbydudeza
What did the CIA or NSA been doing in the mean time with all that budget ...
aren't they supposed to be informed of all things affecting national security
around the globe ???.

Did they really expect that an adversarial superpower would admit to the scale
of their problem ... the US should have been way better prepared.

~~~
wstuartcl
I am sure they did provide detailed analysis, the issue is we have a president
that is not intellectually curious or concerned with information -- instead he
believes in his "gut feelings" over all else (and has said as much when
talking about how he views intelligence services).

~~~
tibbydudeza
Also the political cronies with no clue appointed after the good people with
all the experience left because they disagreed.

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gnusty_gnurc
Clearly the west dropped the ball in important ways, but guidance from the WHO
was certainly bad and seemingly deferential to China and its reputation. But
if there’s evidence the data and reporting is “concealed,” on top of the clear
silencing of doctors (Ai Fen and others), this is egregious.

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thewileyone
First of all, nobody knew what it was, what it did and what it could do when
it first hit. No one said, "oh, this is the coronavirus COVID-19, and this is
the test for it." All this had to be discovered as it got worse.

I want to know why this pandemic blew up right after the mysterious vape flu
in August last year that has the exact same symptoms as COVID-19 and why this
flared up in Wuhan after soldiers from all over the world, about 200 from the
US, were in Wuhan for the World Military Games.

Wet markets and exotic meats are all over China. Why did it just start in
Wuhan?

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pubstik
It is painfully obvious that china concealed the beginnings of the outbreak,
no matter your personal political beliefs, or nationality.

To assert anything else, particularly under the guise of (so and so also did
this), highlights your comment as insincere. Lets keep the politics out of HN.

~~~
hodgesrm
It's also true that many if not most countries have been reluctant to face up
to the scale of the pandemic. It remains to be seen whether the Chinese
government's obfuscation will turn out to be more or less damaging to the
overall response than the inaction of other governments. We're a long way from
the end of this episode.

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showproof
Typical techniques used by "professional" "journalist" to cover up and diverge
the real issue, which is the incompetency of the US government.

You see when you fail at something, isn't it easy to blame someone else,
rather than looking at yourself?

And REMEMBER these journalists are PAID to write.

And YOU, the reader, are only able to comprehend what you are prepared to
hear.

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adultSwim
Worth pointing out that China's on the ground response was light years ahead
of ours in the US. Faster, more coordinated, more robust, calmer..

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vsskanth
Assuming this is correct, what is the estimated death toll in China due to
COVID-19, preferably from a reliable source ?

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kerng
I'm curious what actual infection and death rates are in China- there seems to
be no mentioning in the article. Given what is happening in Italy and Spain,
its probably horrible. :(

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showproof
How come Korea had it under control so quickly, "given" that China "obviouly"
"conceled" the information?

Blame blame blame...more blame

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adultSwim
US mounting hybrid warfare

------
maximente
does anyone take US intelligence seriously any more? seems we have a fairly
reliable years-long evidence trail that says it might not be worth it any
more.

either they're legitimately incompetent (tons of sabre-rattling about the
China "threat" yet no intel operations; likely hasn't been rebuilt after China
publicly executed tons of spies [quite an effective deterrent it seems]) and
they're saying as much here, or they're just deflecting outrage on an external
entity doing typical IC stuff, which is complete noise.

