[whimsicalism]

I am not using any standard lines, I am an internet commentator from the US.

If China were lying about it's numbers, it would be obvious from antibody tests of people traveling from China. It is clear that they are not undercounting deaths by millions.

[philliphaydon]

if a person has a heart problem. In the US it would be something like. “Died of heart problem bought on by covid”. Or “died of covid due to complications caused by heart problem”.

So covid is a causing or contributing factor.

In China. It’s recorded as “heart problem”.

We know this because they do it with seasonal flu. America gets like 20m cases of seasonal flu a year. And like 30k deaths. China gets like 50 cases.

China said that if someone has covid in the family. That’s counted as 1, even if the whole family/household has it. And back in 2020 they leaked a document saying if someone tests positive but doesn’t show symptoms then it’s not recorded as a covid case.

[whimsicalism]

Even if all of that is true, China has had so few covid cases that even that wouldn't explain the difference.

[philliphaydon]

Sure they did aggressive lockdowns. Welded people into apartments and buildings. Etc. and that absolutely contributed to lower covid numbers.

But it doesn’t change the fact the reported numbers are massively censored and doctored.

[whimsicalism]

Not to the tune of millions of lives. Nobody who is studying this thinks that China had millions of covid deaths and managed to hide them.

Claims to the contrary are fringe conspiracy theories. The "lab leak" hypothesis is way more probable than the idea that they have hidden 3 million deaths and the associated covid spread... It's just not possible.

[philliphaydon]

https://www.ft.com/content/45f4b975-443f-44b7-92b8-5d2417491...

> If someone dies after contracting COVID-19 but had, for example, cancer, heart disease or diabetes at the time, Chinese hospitals would not classify the death as resulting from COVID-19, but the chronic illness instead, said Jin Dong-yan (金冬雁), a virologist at Hong Kong University.

> The country has recorded a mere two deaths from more than 443,000 cases since March 1, both of which occurred in Jilin – a province bordering North Korea. Yet, according to a report, several people directly informed the Finanical Times directly that their relatives in Shanghai had passed away after contracting the disease.

[philliphaydon]

Sure they may have only had 80k deaths. But 4638 for 1.4b people. The largest population in the world has the lowest number is deaths and infections?

There was reports of people saying that they received their family members ashes. They weren’t even told they had died just receive ashes.

I don’t believe China would end up with the highest infection or highest deaths. People are quite content wearing masks and social distancing.

But I do believe the numbers are 10x lower than they are in reality.