[bart_spoon]

Since that post was made, there has been widespread reporting that US intelligence agencies are quite sure that China's numbers regarding the infection have been fabricated and underreported by quite a large amount. [0]

Keep in mind that the Chinese government doesn't have to be pursuing a centralized disinformation campaign for it to occur. It would appear that at least a decent amount of the misinformation is occurring because local officials are covering up the extent of the damage from the party for fear of retaliation. In this case, its entirely plausible for large-scale cover-up to be occuring in China, without the national CCP driving it or even being aware of the extent that its occuring.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavir...

[JamesG124]

1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack)

2. I'll grant that that's possibility in the exact same sense in which I grant the centralized cover-up theory to be a possibility, and in which I grant both the lab creation and the lab accident origin theories to be possibilities. But I'm not interested in possibilities. What I'm interested in is positive evidence supportive of this or that theory.

[bart_spoon]

> 1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack)

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of stories produced by national security forces, but there are far more reasons to be skeptical of stories being produced by the CCP. If it's a question of who to believe, I don't know why one would pick the Chinese government.

> 2. I'll grant that that's possibility in the exact same sense in which I grant the centralized cover-up theory to be a possibility, and in which I grant both the lab creation and the lab accident origin theories to be possibilities. But I'm not interested in possibilities. What I'm interested in is positive evidence supportive of this or that theory.

I just gave you positive evidence, and you dismissed it as propaganda. CIA sources are saying that is exactly what is happening on the ground. But if you need more, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence coming from non-intelligence sources. About a month ago on the "This Week in Virology" podcast, one of the visiting virologists who is an expert on coronaviruses said that China had come out and said they won't be conducting any widespread serology testing, which would be necessary for determining how widespread the outbreak got. He said the only reason for not doing this is if you didn't want to know the answer. The implication being that China knows its much worse than has been reported and they don't want the world or their own people to know, as it challenges the narrative of a competent response. And secondly, its been widely reported that China is not including asymptomatic patients in their infection counts, which is absurd, given that we now know they make up anywhere from 20-50% of infections, and are capable of spreading the disease. Again, the only reason for this is if you want to make it seem like there are fewer infections than there actually are.

[JamesG124]

May be of interest:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22881922