[kjakm]

>> Unless Chinese officials are still lying about their cases

Is/was there a whole lot of evidence of this? Was it a local problem in some parts of China? Or was it unfounded? It seems to me there's been just as much of this going on in the west + we're doing a much worse job of handling the epidemic than China has done. I don't have any personal opinion on China generally but the amount of China bashing + hypocrisy in the last few weeks has been astonishing. Supposedly they are even at the point where they are shipping supplies they no longer need to Italy (masks + other equipment) and considering sending people to help too.

[shadowprofile77]

I in no way intended my comment to be seen as China bashing for its own sake, but in the early days of the epidemic in Wuhan, there were noted incidents of at least local officials claiming false information about how contagious COVID was and how far it had spread. It's difficult to generally trust any authoritarian regime that has a vested interest in downplaying things which in part worsened because of its own bad initial response but no, nothing right now gives a solid reason to doubt the current numbers on cases, fatalities, recoveries from China and if indeed they are true as they likely are, the reduction in new cases is visible, and even if that's being achieved through strict measures, it's heartening to see, because it shows that COVID spread can indeed be mitigated to some extent through social measures while medical resources brace themselves