Can information about China's Covid-19 data be trusted?

Is it?

I mean.. they are hiding it really well if that's true.

I have family members and friends in around 20 Chinese cities who are all living happily and enjoying life right now.. Heck, I'm here, and I can go out and see what's going on. none of them know of any new cases or people to have even a friend of a friend of a friend who has had the virus in the last few months..

Compare that to the actual outbreak in China where we all knew people who had the virus, flat blocks in our area were closed off, loads of people were struggling, my friends who work in hospitals were reporting all sorts of problems and overcrowding.

But today? nothing...

This is the problem with these conspiracy theories - they work very well when your sat in a room in the UK and you have no connection to China. In those circumstances you can easily imagine that what's going on over there is so different to what you read on the news... but all you need to do is speak to people who are here in China, and you can find out the reality very quickly. The goverment here can't hide a pandemic, it simply isn't possible to hide an outbreak from the public, considering the public are the ones who come down with the virus. The idea that post-recovery, china is still struggling, is just a conspiracy. The reality is that its had isolated outbreaks that have been dealt with via the same strict measures that worked during the full outbreak back in feb/march.

I also have friends and family in China and they are saying the complete opposite. Its not a conspiracy that they are lying about their figures, it has literally been proven with evidence that they have lied quite badly. Its a shame that some people are so blinded by this and are in full support of the CCP regime. You can't trust a government that failed to first stop the pandemic and communicate with other countries about the effect of the pandemic and then eventually lie about their own cases.N

to shorten my three posts that were moved:

- China isn't hiding a mass outbreak. This would be entirely impossible to do.
- China's numbers in the spring were about as reliable as most nations.. e.g. not that reliable
- China's numbers, as with most countries do map the tradgectory quite well though
- Its highly likely there were many times more cases than were reported at the height of the outbreak (again, like most countries)
- Today, China is virtually virus free, except for occasional localised lockdowns when new outbreaks arrive from abroad
- People here are getting on with life, and life is back to normal, near identical to how it was before, just with a few more masks around

"I also have friends and family in China and they are saying the complete opposite"

No you don't. Please don't lie to try and win arguments online, it doesn't look good.

As for governments failing to stop the virus - if you hadn't noticed, 99% of governments around the world, with far more warning than China initially had, have all failed to stop the virus from spreading. Its not a particularly easy thing to do.

Define 'better'? It's somewhat easier for an autocratic dictatorship to lock down tens of millions (or hundreds of millions for that matter) of people by fiat than it is for a civilised country.


That was the reason given for banning foreigners from entry.

I assume that you also believe the 0 infected from the North Korea? Right?

So Im apparently lying without you having any evidence... so the premise of your argument is that your personal anaecodal opinion is correct and others aren't. Now you're just sounding silly.
You know nothing about who I am where I'm from, because it is a different view to yours, Im supposedly wrong. I could say the same about your point so please stop lying and trying to denigrate others because you don't like it, not really a good thing to do..

Again, at the beginning of the outbreak, no one had any data on the virus. A doctor was completely ignored when he sent the message about how deadly the virus is. The virus could have been contained in China but it wasnf acted upon quickly and so thats why it spread. The root problem was Chinas attitude to the virus, since that was where it was originated from. Its a shams you haven't kept up with any current affairs during this period

Again, at the beginning of the outbreak, no one had any data on the virus. A doctor was completely ignored when he sent the message about how deadly the virus is. The virus could have been contained in China but it wasnf acted upon quickly and so thats why it spread. The root problem was Chinas attitude to the virus, since that was where it was originated from. Its a shams you haven't kept up with any current affairs during this period

Imagine this...

Your sat in your room on the internet, and someone says to you "Oh yeah, all the buses in london are pink now". If you don't live in london, its hard to call them out, all you can do is google to check and that may not be entirely up to date. But imagien if you did live in london, and you walked past the buses everday. You would then be 100% happy to call out their blatent lies.

That's us.

I live in China, And have 5 years of posting history on this site talking about moving there, my life there, my family there, my work etc.

You are the one telling me that the buses are pink.

I am the one who is walking through major cities in China each day seeing what is actually happening and feeling 100% confident in calling you out your ********.

(unless your going to cliam that for the past 5 years I have been constructing an elaborate lie on this site, all in preperation for this moment.. run along)

Imagine the roles are flipped... and most of you living in the UK had to listen to a Spanish person tell you that your still in the middle of the crisis, and your still in full lockdown, schools aren't open, people are still dying by the thousand etc. etc. What ever the lie/conspiracy is..

You would be sat just laughing, thinking about how far away that is from the reality your living in your country.

And I "believe you"

Neither Spain nor UK are Murderous dictatorships with ridiculous level of censorships.

check if you want - My life from Alevels to PHD is mapped on this site, with discussions on most big things Ive done, I have years of post history and consistancy backign up the fact that I live in China... You can probably go back 5 and a half years and find me first discussing going, and then talking about arriving etc.

Believe what ever you want. Joke about what ever you want - If you check, you'll know I'm right.

so?

Wow, now you got me, whole five years of posting random stuff, wow, that makes you the universal source of truth, right?
It's not possible that I might might be working with bunch of engineers that happen to be from China, right? There is no way that they told me that you are just a paid drone or Party wanna be, 50cent or junk or something like that.

Imagine this...

Your sat in your room on the internet, and someone says to you "Oh yeah, all the buses in london are pink now". If you don't live in london, its hard to call them out, all you can do is google to check and that may not be entirely up to date. But imagien if you did live in london, and you walked past the buses everday. You would then be 100% happy to call out their blatent lies.

That's us.

I live in China, And have 5 years of posting history on this site talking about moving there, my life there, my family there, my work etc.

You are the one telling me that the buses are pink.

I am the one who is walking through major cities in China each day seeing what is actually happening and feeling 100% confident in calling you out your ********.

(unless your going to cliam that for the past 5 years I have been constructing an elaborate lie on this site, all in preperation for this moment.. run along)

Right so again, it goes back to a personal anecdotes. You don't have to believe me if you don't and because you have a posting history on this particular website doesn't make you more believable. If I was on this website for 10 years would that have made my claims stronger than yours of course not. I think you have to realise that unless you know someone irl or have some evidence which proves what you are saying (Living in China, working there) a point from random kid online isn't necessarily believable. As I've said you know nothing about who I am where I'm from, I've already said I'm from China, born and brought up there and I know their system, your points are completely contradictory to family sources who have told me otherwise. Granted that being said, my views are anecodal and don't have to believed by anyone, just a point I was making. As well as that you do realise that China is a very large country, maybe in you're area the Virus has very little impact but from my area its the opposite.
Unfortunately the problem is, we can't trust the sources given by the Chinese because they have been falsified before, once the pandemic ends I believe we will find the real numbers associated with the Virus

Compare these two countries:

The UK - new about the virus for 2-3 months before it arrived. Knew the exact genetic code before it arrived, and had seen multiple examples of how other countries dealt with it. Had a couple of months to prepare hospitals, build up supplies, close borders, impliment quarentine and new laws etc. All before the virus arrived.

China - By the time the virus was identified it had already spread by the thousands.. by the time it was understood it was already in multiple cities - Every action after that is playing catch up.

Could they have done better? Obviously. But the vast majority of countries, with far more warning than China have, have failed to contain the virus within their boarders. Take Italy for example - agian, far more warning than China had.. And yet they failed to contain it within their borders, and they then became the origin for most of the spread within Europe.

The reality is that it was never going to be able to be contianed within China. We are simply to globalised, and too contected to be able to contain these things any more. The WHO estimates that a 1 month period between first detection and understanding the virus is normal for a pandemic. Within just 1 month, so many people travel, to so many places, unless the new policy is to lock down any country every time an unexplained illness occurs, there is no way to stop things becoming international.