-
IP addresses are NOT logged in this forum so there's no point asking. Please note that this forum is full of homophobes, racists, lunatics, schizophrenics & absolute nut jobs with a smattering of geniuses, Chinese chauvinists, Moderate Muslims and last but not least a couple of "know-it-alls" constantly sprouting their dubious wisdom. If you believe that content generated by unsavory characters might cause you offense PLEASE LEAVE NOW! Sammyboy Admin and Staff are not responsible for your hurt feelings should you choose to read any of the content here. The OTHER forum is HERE so please stop asking.
Serious AMDK New York Vs Tiong Wuhan New Year Event!
- Thread starter Pinkieslut
- Start date
Wuhan's official COVID case numbers could be way off
A man stands in the middle of rows of beds in a large convention centre.
Convention centres were converted into temporary hospitals in Wuhan after hospitals reached full capacity.(Chinatopix Via AP, File)
Share
More than 4 per cent of 11 million residents in Wuhan — where COVID-19 was first detected — may have been infected with the virus, a new study by China's top disease control agency shows.
Key points:
Experts say the discrepancy between the official figures and actual case numbers is to be expected
Authorities initially did not count asymptomatic cases, which may have contributed to the discrepancy
Coverage of the CDC report by state-owned media has been sparse
The Chinese Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the results of a serological study of some 34,000 residents from Wuhan and other Chinese cities on its WeChat account earlier this week.
The post said the study was conducted one month after China successfully controlled the epidemic earlier this year, but did not specify which month.
The CDC said it found about 4.43 per cent of survey participants from Wuhan had COVID-19 antibodies in their blood.
Several mainstream international media outlets including the BBC and New York Times calculated that based on Wuhan's population of 11.2 million people, nearly 500,000 people may have contracted COVID-19.
This figure would be 10 times the official count of 50,000 confirmed cases reported by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, not including asymptomatic cases.
The new findings come as an international team of experts will travel to Wuhan next week to commence a six-month World Health Organization (WHO)-led probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discrepancy in numbers 'likely evidence of what did happen'
A truck painted with the Chinese national flag fumigate a street decorated with red Chinese lantens.
Officials routinely deployed vehicles spraying disinfectant across Wuhan during the city's outbreak.(Reuters Via China Daily)
Terry Nolan, who is the Doherty Institute's head of vaccine and immunisation research group in Melbourne, told the ABC this discrepancy was to be expected, as those counting cases during the early stages of Wuhan's epidemic would have missed a lot of cases.
"In Wuhan in the beginning, no-one knew how [the virus] was behaving," Dr Nolan said.
He said the 4.43 per cent antibody rate among those sampled in Wuhan was "where you'd expect it to be", given that retrospective serological surveys often pick up antibodies in young people, who were less likely to have exhibited any symptoms during the initial outbreak.
To date, the CDC has not released the technical data from the study, which would show how the virus moved through different demographic groups, such as age, gender, or occupation.
Dr Nolan said it was also critical for people not to "jump to conclusions" about the numeric discrepancy signalling some greater conspiracy.
"The fundamental thing that underlies the suspicion [of China] is that the numbers are being manipulated for some greater political purpose. That's something I'm very sceptical about," Dr Nolan said.
When censorship and science collide
A person wearing a white biohazard suit leans on a window of a high-rise building.
Medical staff were punished for speaking out about the virus during the early stages of the epidemic in Wuhan.(Reuters)
The CDC's findings were first released on its official WeChat account earlier this week, though coverage of the report by state-owned media has been sparse.
While there is a report on Xinhua, another article on the findings on state-owned China Internet Information Centre — which also suggested that Wuhan could have recorded around 500,000 cases — was taken down last night.
No other state-owned Chinese media has since reported the near-500,000 projection.
However, the ABC has identified some 160 posts discussing the report on Chinese social media platform Weibo.
He Jing, a prominent science editor in Shanghai, suggested on Weibo that the CDC's report explained "why hospitals were overwhelmed" at the height of Wuhan's outbreak.
It is unclear if there have been Government-led attempts to censor, or downplay the findings of the CDC report in local media.
However, China's censorship in general has led to criticism of Beijing's handling of the pandemic in its early stages.
"I'm not naive about the way in which China operates as a country, but equally there are very fine Chinese scientists and epidemiologists, many of whom trained in Australia, and celebrate what we do internationally," Dr Nolan said.
At the height of Wuhan's epidemic in February, Matthew Kavanagh, a specialist in global health and political science at Washington's Georgetown University, wrote in The Lancet that Beijing's top-down control of information hindered its capacity to get on top of the virus when it first emerged.
"Healthcare workers suspected an outbreak in early December, 2019, but information with which the public might have taken preventive measures was suppressed, and communication channels that might have alerted senior officials to the growing threat were shut down," Dr Kavanagh wrote.
"Police detained a clinician and seven other people posting reports on 2019-nCoV, threatening punishment for spreading so-called 'rumours'.
"Social media was censored; a preliminary analysis of Weibo and WeChat published on China's biggest online platform showed outbreak discussions were nearly non-existent through much of January, 2020, until the Chinese Government changed its official stance on Jan 20, 2020."
A man stands in the middle of rows of beds in a large convention centre.
Convention centres were converted into temporary hospitals in Wuhan after hospitals reached full capacity.(Chinatopix Via AP, File)
Share
More than 4 per cent of 11 million residents in Wuhan — where COVID-19 was first detected — may have been infected with the virus, a new study by China's top disease control agency shows.
Key points:
Experts say the discrepancy between the official figures and actual case numbers is to be expected
Authorities initially did not count asymptomatic cases, which may have contributed to the discrepancy
Coverage of the CDC report by state-owned media has been sparse
The Chinese Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the results of a serological study of some 34,000 residents from Wuhan and other Chinese cities on its WeChat account earlier this week.
The post said the study was conducted one month after China successfully controlled the epidemic earlier this year, but did not specify which month.
The CDC said it found about 4.43 per cent of survey participants from Wuhan had COVID-19 antibodies in their blood.
Several mainstream international media outlets including the BBC and New York Times calculated that based on Wuhan's population of 11.2 million people, nearly 500,000 people may have contracted COVID-19.
This figure would be 10 times the official count of 50,000 confirmed cases reported by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, not including asymptomatic cases.
The new findings come as an international team of experts will travel to Wuhan next week to commence a six-month World Health Organization (WHO)-led probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discrepancy in numbers 'likely evidence of what did happen'
A truck painted with the Chinese national flag fumigate a street decorated with red Chinese lantens.
Officials routinely deployed vehicles spraying disinfectant across Wuhan during the city's outbreak.(Reuters Via China Daily)
Terry Nolan, who is the Doherty Institute's head of vaccine and immunisation research group in Melbourne, told the ABC this discrepancy was to be expected, as those counting cases during the early stages of Wuhan's epidemic would have missed a lot of cases.
"In Wuhan in the beginning, no-one knew how [the virus] was behaving," Dr Nolan said.
He said the 4.43 per cent antibody rate among those sampled in Wuhan was "where you'd expect it to be", given that retrospective serological surveys often pick up antibodies in young people, who were less likely to have exhibited any symptoms during the initial outbreak.
To date, the CDC has not released the technical data from the study, which would show how the virus moved through different demographic groups, such as age, gender, or occupation.
Dr Nolan said it was also critical for people not to "jump to conclusions" about the numeric discrepancy signalling some greater conspiracy.
"The fundamental thing that underlies the suspicion [of China] is that the numbers are being manipulated for some greater political purpose. That's something I'm very sceptical about," Dr Nolan said.
When censorship and science collide
A person wearing a white biohazard suit leans on a window of a high-rise building.
Medical staff were punished for speaking out about the virus during the early stages of the epidemic in Wuhan.(Reuters)
The CDC's findings were first released on its official WeChat account earlier this week, though coverage of the report by state-owned media has been sparse.
While there is a report on Xinhua, another article on the findings on state-owned China Internet Information Centre — which also suggested that Wuhan could have recorded around 500,000 cases — was taken down last night.
No other state-owned Chinese media has since reported the near-500,000 projection.
However, the ABC has identified some 160 posts discussing the report on Chinese social media platform Weibo.
He Jing, a prominent science editor in Shanghai, suggested on Weibo that the CDC's report explained "why hospitals were overwhelmed" at the height of Wuhan's outbreak.
It is unclear if there have been Government-led attempts to censor, or downplay the findings of the CDC report in local media.
However, China's censorship in general has led to criticism of Beijing's handling of the pandemic in its early stages.
"I'm not naive about the way in which China operates as a country, but equally there are very fine Chinese scientists and epidemiologists, many of whom trained in Australia, and celebrate what we do internationally," Dr Nolan said.
At the height of Wuhan's epidemic in February, Matthew Kavanagh, a specialist in global health and political science at Washington's Georgetown University, wrote in The Lancet that Beijing's top-down control of information hindered its capacity to get on top of the virus when it first emerged.
"Healthcare workers suspected an outbreak in early December, 2019, but information with which the public might have taken preventive measures was suppressed, and communication channels that might have alerted senior officials to the growing threat were shut down," Dr Kavanagh wrote.
"Police detained a clinician and seven other people posting reports on 2019-nCoV, threatening punishment for spreading so-called 'rumours'.
"Social media was censored; a preliminary analysis of Weibo and WeChat published on China's biggest online platform showed outbreak discussions were nearly non-existent through much of January, 2020, until the Chinese Government changed its official stance on Jan 20, 2020."
Similar threads
