https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Estimating-the-True-Number-of-Chinas-COVID-19-Cases.pdf (full report)
Key Points
- China’s COVID-19 figures are not arithmetically sensible. The Communist Party has deliberately made estimation difficult, but, outside of Wuhan city and Hubei province, cases are low by a factor of 100 or more.
- In late January, Chinese media provided information about migrant outflow from Wuhan before quarantine. Using a lower number than theirs, then conservative figures for migrants’ infection rate and time in circulation before national lockdown, generates an estimate of 2.9 million cases.
- This is partly due to China’s huge population. That population can also hide COVID-19 among tens of millions of respiratory illnesses. Along with harshly enforced censorship, the population can hide tens of thousands of deaths.
