[billfruit]

Yet your post seemed to hint at willful manipulation of data, which isn't something for which there is reliable concrete evidence for, and which in my view is adding to the paranoia. The line of thinking for eg:, Chinese numbers are untrustworthy, WHO numbers are untrustworthy etc, is very frequently echoed by the western press, and even here in HN.

[mensetmanusman]

People’s mistrust of China data stems from the known manipulation of economic indicators by Chinese authorities. The running assumption is that this behavior would apply to virus outbreak data, but this is unproven.

[heavyset_go]

They lied about their numbers during the SARS outbreak.

[nik_s]

I think you're referring specifically to the "political and cultural pressure in China" part of my original post. I was basing this on reporting from the New York Times [1] of the original outbreak. It very well might be that the reporting has improved since then, but I do think that there is evidence to say that there was manipulation of data, or at least a very strong incentive to under-report cases initially.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/podcasts/the-daily/corona...