Intelligence report says China is lying about the extent of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Airport employees in China. Bloomberg.

A new intelligence report suggests that China is lying about the extent of the Coronavirus outbreak. Bloomberg. Both the total number of cases and the number of deaths may have been concealed from the international community. Officially China had, as of this writing, 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths. President Trump said that the numbers looked like they were on the "light side" but also added he isn't an accountant. China's numbers have long been under question and the government there has changed how they count their number of cases. For example, for a long time they did not count people who tested positive but who were not showing symptoms. China denied these claims. However, China is not the only country with questionable numbers with Iran, Russia, Indonesia and North Korea. 

My Comment:

I should point out that this story cited anonymous reports with no documents to back up what was said. It does match what some of our government officials have said, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out that all reports with anonymous sources should be taken with at least a little bit of cynicism and skepticism. 

I personally don't trust the numbers out of China. Given that they were the source of the outbreak and were dealing with it for longer than anyone else I sincerely doubt they only had 3,300 deaths. My guess is that they had a lot more than that and probably if they were honest they had the most deaths. It would be extremely unlikely that they ended up with fewer deaths than Italy, Spain and America. 

What is more concerning is their claim that the Coronavirus is now under control in China. China claims that there are no domestic cases of the virus anymore, but can we really trust that? They have lied about everything else so it's certainly possible that they are lying about this as well. And they might be willing to risk the lives of their citizens to get their economy up and running again. 

However, though I think the Chinese government lied about the extent of the outbreak, I don't think they could fake what is happening there now. I tend to think that the outbreak is under control now, largely because that South Korea proves that you can control the disease. You can hide the extent of an outbreak but you can't hide the lack of new cases. If there were a large number of new cases we would be seeing evidence of it on social media. 

I do think that China deserves most of the blame for the Coronavirus outbreak. Though other leaders could have done more, China was not honest about what was going on until the virus had escaped Wuhan. If they had been honest to the world and allowed other countries to help this disease could have been stopped in it's tracks and the global pandemic could have been prevented. 

China also deserves blame for the pressure they put onto various media and organizations. They lobbied against travel bans long after it was clear that they were needed to stop the flow of the virus. They tried to paint criticism of their government's actions as racism and they even tried to blame the virus itself on the United States. 

I think there will be consequences for China. People are going to second guess working with them and buying their products, especially after the rash of problems with Chinese made test kits and masks. I am sure that America will diversify their manufacturing, bringing much of it home and some of it will be sourced from other countries. And I think other countries are going to follow suit. 

I also think there is evidence that the Chinese people themselves are getting sick and tired of their government. They have always tolerated the abuse the government has given them with the understanding that the government would keep things profitable and stable. With the economy in ruin and a lot of people dead, both of those things are no longer true. 

China is not the only country I suspect of lying about the Coronavirus. North Korea claims to have no cases at all, but I sincerely doubt that is the case given their shared border with China and South Korea. I am also very suspicious about the numbers coming out of Iran. Given their lack of a quarantine and some of the reporting coming from the country, I would say their outbreak is probably the worst in the world right now.