How China covered up COVID
A dictatorship lied about a pandemic that started within its borders. Imagine that.
According to the running tally of COVID-19 cases tracked by Worldometer, as of Monday the People’s Republic of China ranked 71st in total infections, with 86,530 in total, and discovered eighteen new cases on that date.
I’m perfectly willing to believe that China really does have far fewer COVID-19 cases than the United States, India and the larger Western European countries. When you’re a dictatorship, at the very least, you can make damn sure everyone is masking up when they go outside, and you don’t have to worry about these pesky anti-lockdown demonstrations. (When China locks down, it literally locks down.)
Do they have fewer total cases than Canada, with a tiny fraction of China’s population but almost five times as many reported infections? I’m pretty skeptical of that one, especially considering that the Atlantic Provinces alone are easily recording more than eighteen new cases per day.
In any event, CNN has gotten its hands on some Chinese government documents, which show the lengths to which the Communists went to cover up this growing health crisis in its early stages:
From a secure room about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from the epicenter, Xi expressed his condolences to those who have died in the outbreak. He urged greater public communication, as around the world concerns mounted about the potential threat posed by the new disease.
That same day, Chinese authorities reported 2,478 new confirmed cases -- raising the total global number to more than 40,000, with fewer than 400 cases occurring outside of mainland China. Yet CNN can now reveal how official documents circulated internally show that this was only part of the picture.
In a report marked "internal document, please keep confidential," local health authorities in the province of Hubei, where the virus was first detected, list a total of 5,918 newly detected cases on February 10, more than double the official public number of confirmed cases, breaking down the total into a variety of subcategories. This larger figure was never fully revealed at that time, as China's accounting system seemed, in the tumult of the early weeks of the pandemic, to downplay the severity of the outbreak.
[…]
Death tolls listed in the documents reveal the starkest discrepancies. On March 7, the total death toll in Hubei since the beginning of the outbreak stood at 2,986, but in the internal report it is listed as 3,456, including 2,675 confirmed deaths, 647 "clinically diagnosed" deaths, and 126 "suspected" case deaths.
Dali Yang, who has extensively studied the outbreak's origins, said that in February numbers "still mattered because of global perceptions."
"They were still hoping it was like 2003, and like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) would be eventually contained, and everything can go back to normal," added Yang, who is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He pointed to the February 7 call between presidents Trump and Xi. "I think that's also the (wishful) impression that Trump got -- that this is going to disappear."
The documents, however, are by no means clear cut. On two occasions, the public death numbers are narrowly over reported, with the internal figures indicating single-digit discrepancies of five and one, respectively.
On other occasions, the data provides glimpses of new information but without vital context. Even though China has never revealed the total number of Covid-19 cases in 2019, a graph in one document appears to suggest a much higher number had been detected. In the bottom left hand column of the graph marked 2019 the number of "confirmed cases" and "clinically diagnosed" cases appears to reach around 200 altogether. The documents do not elaborate further. To date, the clearest indication of how many cases were detected in 2019 is the 44 "cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause)" that Chinese authorities reported to the WHO for the period of the pandemic up to January 3, 2020.
As it turns out, while dictatorships can get some big things done when they set their minds to it, in many other ways it is the worst kind of government to have to respond quickly to an emergency:
As the virus spread, local officials were accused of downplaying the outbreak and its risk to the public. In late December, a young doctor named Li Wenliang in one of Wuhan's main hospitals, was among other medical workers summoned by local authorities and later received formal "reprimand" from the police for attempting to raise the alarm about a potential "SARS-like" virus. State media reported their punishment and warned public against rumour mongering.
Li, 34, later contracted the disease. His condition quickly worsened and in the early morning of February 7 he died, resulting in almost unprecedented levels of anger and outrage across mainland China's heavily censored internet.
It is not clear to what extent the central government was aware of the actions taking place in Hubei at that time, or how much information was being shared and with whom. The documents offer no indication that authorities in Beijing were directing the local decision-making process.
However, Mertha, the JHU academic, said the mismatch between the higher internal and lower public figures on the February death toll "appeared to be a deception, for unsurprising reasons."
"China had an image to protect internationally, and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to under-report -- or to show their superiors that they were under-reporting -- to outside eyes," he said.
This is some impressive work by CNN, but some passages of the story raised my eyebrows, especially “the documents provide no evidence of a deliberate attempt to obfuscate findings, [but] they do reveal numerous inconsistencies in what authorities believed to be happening and what was revealed to the public.”
That’s a charitable way of putting it. (You know my feelings about Trump, but there’s no way CNN uses phrasing like this in a story about him.)
The report also concludes that, after a rough start, the Chinese ultimately prevailed against COVID-19:
China's leaders were the first to confront the virus, implementing a raft of draconian restrictions beginning in late January intended to curb the spread of the outbreak. Using sophisticated surveillance tools, government officials enforced strict lockdowns across the country, largely restricting more than 700 million people to their homes, while sealing national borders and carrying out widespread testing and contract tracing.
According to a study published in the journal Science in May, the stringent measures adopted during those first 50 days of the pandemic likely helped break the localized chain of transmission.
Today, China is close to zero local cases and although small-scale outbreaks continue to flare, the virus is mostly contained.
No, seriously: sure, Jan. Like I said, I can believe China has contained the outbreak more efficiently than many democratic countries (democratic for now, at least) but I’m sure as Hell not going to take the Chinese Communist Party at its word.
I’ve been perfectly fine, in principle, with Donald Trump’s lawyers trying to contest the 2020 Presidential election results in court. If they have a legitimate claim, they have every right to pursue it. If the claims have no merit - and we know the answer to that question now, don’t we? - they will be dismissed and life will go on. As I argued yesterday, Trump’s lawsuits being laughed out of court actually discredits him and makes Biden’s victory look more legitimate every time.
I don’t even begrudge his lawyers stupid mistakes, because God knows I’ve made more than my share.
When the lawyers are actively messing with exhibits to mislead the court, however, it’s really time for some Bar Associations to start taking notice:
When former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell filed her much-hyped “Kraken” lawsuit seeking to decertify Georgia’s presidential election results, the conspiracy theory-laden, error-riddled complaint quickly became the object of mockery online. A majority of legal observers criticized the filing for containing a multitude of typos, sloppy formatting, and a dozen references to the late Hugo Chavez, but the lawsuit also included an altered exhibit of significance: a document from Georgia’s Secretary of State Office regarding the certification of Dominion Voting Systems’ voting machines.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, claimed that Dominion was “founded by foreign oligarchs and dictators to ensure computerized ballot-stuffing and vote manipulation to whatever level was needed to make certain Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez never lost another election.” Powell alleged that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, “rushed through the purchase of Dominion voting machines and software in 2019 for the 2020 Presidential Election,” declaring that “a certificate from the Secretary of State was awarded to Dominion Voting Systems but is undated.”
The complaint also attached a copy of the supposedly undated certificate, stating, “See attached hereto Exh. 5, copy Certification for Dominion Voting Systems from Secretary of State,” though the certificate was actually filed as “Exhibit 6” on the court’s docket.
If the Dominion certification page included in Powell’s exhibit appears oddly shaped, as though the bottom quarter of the page were chopped off, that’s because it was. Viewing the full document, which still appears on the Secretary’s website, It’s easy to see why that bottom quarter of the document would have been problematic to Powell’s claims, as it reads, in part: “I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of my office, at the Capitol, in the City of Atlanta, this 9th day of August, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Nineteen […].”
Emphasis added. Powell says it was a mistake, and considering that photocopiers are evil and that Powell herself isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, I might be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But a copier screwup that left out the date on the exhibit wouldn’t explain why the complaint itself describes the document as undated and therefore proof of…something or other.
Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life because he broke a “golden rule” against betting on games. Blatantly lying to the court like this is a golden rule that should end any lawyer’s career.
That goes for listing someone as your client without his consent, too.
On Monday I was honored to get a plug from Jonathan V. Last, in his Triad newsletter from The Bulwark. Last has been one of my favorite political writers going back to his Weekly Standard days (I even remember his old “Galley Slaves” blog back in the day) and had some encouraging words for me when I started this thing. It’s no accident that this Substack features three items per day, just like his.
This (and also some kind words from the Fifth Column podcast and a link from the legendary Allahpundit) was just what I needed. I had been wondering if this newsletter would ever find an audience, but now I feel like George Bailey at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life.
I signed up for your newsletter after seeing JVL’s plug yesterday. Great job on today’s piece. Glad to be following you. Keep up the good work. We need independent journalism so much, now.
Congratulations on being quoted by Jonathan Last! It was my son’s birthday and I was a bit busy with that, so I hadn’t read it. I will have to remedy that :) ...that’s pretty awesome. As are the other mentions, which I will be sure to check out :)
As to wondering if it would ever come to something...you understand people from the inside and see things that others don’t. Good people notice other good people, as you’re seeing now. It just takes a lot of time. The uncertainty is perhaps the worst part. It can be hard to tell if anyone’s reading when they don’t give you feedback.
I’m thrilled that this is coming together for you! Keep faith!! :)
As to China...no way they’re telling the truth. It’s like when a dictator is “elected” with, say, 95% of the vote. If the numbers are waaay too good to be true...
China may lie, but it cannot tell the rest of the world what to *think*. That’s still up to us.
Again, congrats :)