Michael, first, a big disclaimer; I haven’t researched what follows this paragraph, and there has been a lot of China-bashing about for years, eg. we often hear about China’s high CO2 emissions, but it’s rarely mentioned that (1) the per-capita emissions are lower than Western countries, (2) much of China’s emissions are from manufacturing for export, and it’s predominantly the West buying the products, (3) China has more installed renewables than any other country, and is installing more faster than anywhere else, (4) China has been more successful in decoupling economic growth from rising emissions than any other country and (5) a lot of the new coal burning capacity being built is factories rather than power stations, which are being authorised by local authorities in contravention of central government; big place, China. That’s quite a lot of good news you very rarely hear about China. So, with China bashing in mind…
Back in February or March I saw a video interviewing leading UK virology and epidemiology experts. One of them said that China’s published case and death figures must be between a tenth and a hundredth of reality.
China wouldn’t give the WHO free access; they negotiated for a couple of days or more, and then Chinese officials accompanied the WHO and permitted them to certain places only.
I also have two links, but I have no idea how propagandistic the media sources are. Treat with caution. The first is about crematoria:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020182846.html
This second one claims to show figures that were leaked or escaped, and says they match a mathematical epidemic simulation:
Remember also that the Chinese lockdown has been absolutely brutal, especially in Wuhan, and this would be more effective. Doors of apartment blocks welded shut; people carted off to quarantine by teams of four in biohazard suits just on the basis of a forehead temperature reading, not even asked to come voluntarily. Such incidents have been caught on cellphone cameras. Also a lawyer who was videoing the massive backlogs at crematoria was arrested, not heard from for a fortnight and then didn’t post any more videos.
I have long thought that China was greatly suppressing its figures.