we have now had more deaths from covid 19 than China!

[EricaNernie]

That is so shocking and awful.
remembering how impressed and worried we were about china building new hospitals almost overnight, and the lockdown
and now it is here.

I believe that China have not given accurate numbers but there are some rumours that have gotten unnecessarily scary.

The urn rumour doesn’t take into account the usual amount of deaths that would have occurred during the same time period which would have added to the problems of cremating bodies and dispensing ashes to relatives during a lockdown.

The mobile phones out of commission also doesn’t factor in people who were cut off due to finances or work places cutting off contracts etc.

I believe these may be indicators of truer figures but not enough to deduce that there were millions of deaths.

Would that mean the fatelity rate is much higher than initially reported?

The mobile phones out of commission also doesn’t factor in people who were cut off due to finances or work places cutting off contracts etc.

The articles that I've read about this say that the government apps on the phones would be needed for everything including buying food. The implication being that people wouldn't survive without them, is that not true?

Would that mean the fatelity rate is much higher than initially reported?

Until a country has extensive testing to work out the true infection rate we can't really know.

I think reports from Germany where they've done more random representative testing the case fatality rate is looking possibly better than first thought, certainly better than Italy's data looks.

I thought in Germany they weren’t testing if someone died before they’d been tested, wouldn’t that skew their death rate?

Im another one who doesnt believe they telling the whole truth.

I don't know. Is anywhere testing everyone one after death? Presumably they're testing anyone admitted and will then know how many of them die?

I thought I'd read that they are doing higher levels of testing in the community amongst asymptomatic people too?

You can't work out the case fatality rate until you have accurate numbers for the people who died plus the true number of infections in people who don't die. Does any country have that level of data? Maybe South Korea I suppose where case fatality rate is low.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras but that’s presuming people only have one phone. I know lots of people with work phones and certainly every household I know has a phone per person.

I don’t trust China at all and there are very believable accounts of Hong Kong protestors going ‘missing’ for over a year but I think some of the speculative sleuthing into the covid casualties isn’t balanced and is scaremongering. Their actual numbers will be frightening anyway, I don’t think they need exaggerating.

I don’t know actually, the way it was reported (BBC) made it sound as though it was different to other countries so their death rates should be treated with some caution.
But yes, your right, hard to know how many have had it at this point. SK seem to have done the most testing so if they have a lower fatality rate that is, presumably, a good indication.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras - sorry to tag you again

I think the most accurate projections will be from the cruise ships affected. Obviously the numbers are smaller and not such a varied population but they’re the most accurate testing rates we’ve got. Iceland (pop. c400k) have also been able to do wider testing.

How did the WHO confirm China's numbers?

They did Steff13 but they’re coming under scrutiny for this regarding their relationship with China/funding and it’s not looking great. It’d be more of a story in normal times.

The virus was able to spread unconstrained for 2 months in China when it was presumably at it's most virulent (new viruses tend to reduce in pathogenicity as they evolve adapt to the human host)
No way is China as clean as it paints itself

Italy & Spain 250 deaths per million people
China 2 deaths per million people
really?

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras
I live in China and can confirm that you can buy food without government apps on your phone. I use cash...

ShanghaiDiva

Thank you for confirming it.

UYScuti

Italy & Spain 250 deaths per million people. China 2 deaths per million people really?

Obviously China is full of superhumans who have 100 times the normal resistance to novel viruses. Either that, or a communist dictatorship might be lying to the world.

I guess we’ll never know which it is!

Of course the Chinese figures are wrong.

But to what degree, and how much of that is due to a cover-up and how much incompetence, I doubt we will ever know.

The virus was able to spread unconstrained for 2 months in China when it was presumably at it's most virulent

This is another variable. As they were ground zero there will have been a significant amount of time that they weren’t even looking for it or knew what to look for. This may be able to be extrapolated from general figures for population mortality over that period but it won’t be accurate and likely to be made to look better than it actually is.

I don't know if China's figures are accurate, but I believe they were able to contain the outbreak mainly in one area of the country. If you sort the worldometer table of deaths per 1m of population, there are any number of countries ahead of them, not just the UK!

worldometer

Because China is bullshitting.

The UK is lying about its death rate. Deaths in care homes are not being recorded as part of official figures

Yep, nor if people die from it in their homes.

I think most countries are only counting hospital deaths?

The ONS figures include deaths ' related to COVID-19 that took place outside of hospitals and those not tested for COVID-19.'

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

I’m not going to lie, I don’t trust China’s figures either