Inconvenient truths… and the numbers that support them… can be hidden. In some places, technology will help expose the truth; in other places technology can effectively hide the truth. Yet, the web of numbers that make up the truth matter. There was once a time when numbers that are reported from a credible source were generally accepted as true. Credibility was once a major element of credibility.
A headline in the New York Times stating, “Major Politician Implicated in Major Scandal” was assumed to be true, or at least very possibly true. A headline in the National Enquirer stating, “Bat/Human Hybrid Announces Run for President”, gains less acceptance. Yet both publications once had similar circulation numbers, and for a time the National Enquirer was beating the New York Times at exposing political scandals. In America today, the credibility of our media is a complex issue.
But the next step up in credibility is scientific organizations. Without the pressures of daily deadlines, scientific organizations are expected to take time to carefully calculate numbers, get peer reviews, and then double-check all assumptions before the “public” ever sees their numbers. Now, we tend to just doubt numbers. If an International Oceanographic research center tells us that there are 15% fewer whales in the ocean, we want to see 15% missing whales. But, how do you show that to a skeptic who wants a single-sentence reply or a single picture that explains everything? Perhaps you can’t!
Much of the world doubts any number. Remember all that fighting about electoral numbers? Doubting elections used to be limited to 3rd world countries. Was the official count wrong? Did millions of votes just go missing? Probably not. Today, even a hint that the numbers could be off is enough to start an insurrection. Remember when an insurrection only happened in 3rd world countries?
We all have numbers that we don’t like or don’t want to talk about. What’s your weight? How old are you? We’re often offended that anyone would even ask these questions! Governments, on the other hand, usually have much more embarrassing numbers that they don’t want to talk about. Numbers can clearly point out failed government policies.
Like the War in Ukraine. The war hasn’t gone the way that Russia… or at least Putin… expected. Rather than being terrified by Russia’s innumerable tanks, Ukrainians were… pissed. Russia’s tank columns and Russian flagships were destroyed. And Ukrainian soldiers have killed Russian soldiers in embarrassingly large numbers.
Russia wants to limit information on its failed war in Ukraine. At home, Putin told citizens about his high-minded plan to free culturally Russian Ukrainians from their Nazi oppressors. Nazi’s? In the 21st Century? Alternatively, Western powers cite Russia’s desire for Ukraine’s oil fields. Russia After taking over “foreign” news services and with little international travel in Russian after the war starts, Russians have little information other than what Russian news outlets provide.
War leaves behind a lot of visible evidence, such as destroyed tanks, ships, and military bases. These are big objects and are relatively easy to count. Ukrainian citizens have published images of wrecked Russian military equipment and dead Russian soldiers. In the age of the Internet photographic evidence is linked to satellite tracking and then listed in online databases. Russian leaders didn’t expect that kind of publically accessible numbers.
Now, consider the Pandemic. The war in Ukraine, however brutal, only directly impacted 2 countries. The violence has been relentless, with an estimated 200,000 killed and wounded on both sides. That’s more than a decade of US military fatalities in the Vietnam war. Yet, it pales next to 6,600,000 global COVID-19 deaths. COVID claimed more lives and caused deaths in every nation on earth.
China’s reaction to COVID-19 stands out among nations. China claims that only 5,000 died. But they also had the most frequent and brutal lockdowns of any nation. Unless China had some as-yet unrevealed miracle, deaths should have been in the millions. If they didn’t have millions of deaths, their economically disastrous lockdowns make no sense. What’s the truth? What can we learn from the numbers?
There are many theories about how COVID-19 infected the world. But they all agree that the Pandemic began in China, probably in Wuhan. The most popular theory is that the infection started in a wet market. If so, we can blame Chinese policies that centralized domestic animal farming, forcing small farmers to raise exotic animals (snakes, bats, reptiles, birds, etc.), carrying exotic diseases into urban environments. Less likely, but still possible, is that test samples from bats (which are regularly tested for contagious diseases) were sent to a government laboratory in Wuhan, where it was accidentally released. In either case, the first sightings of COVID-19 were in Wuhan. Either way, Chinese government policy put the virus in Wuhan, and from there it spread across China.
At first, officials did little. There were no lockdowns. The city of Wuhan has a larger population than NYC. In NYC and other large cities, most of the fatalities happened in the early days of the Pandemic. NYC had nearly 50,000 COVID-19 deaths. Wuhan is hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. Hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens were on the path the infection traveled as it left China. All before China’s first lockdown.
China’s COVID numbers are not only a lie, they are an unbelievable lie. In the literal sense. No nation in 2020 or today believes China’s numbers. Why tell a lie if no one will believe it? There are several reasons.
The first is a report China released in 2015, “Made in China 2025”. Essentially, this was the government’s ten-year plan to become the leading nation for high-tech industries. Today, there is little doubt that China manufactures most of the world’s industrial and consumer goods. Their goals to dominate electric cars, sustainable energy, advanced robotics, and artificial intelligence looked quite achievable in 2020. And then COVID happened.
If China became thought of as the Plague center of the world, would any port allow their products in? Would ports around the world be crowded with quarantined Chinese ships? In past epidemics, quarantined ships (and passengers) from plague cities was not uncommon. Admitting massive COVID-19 deaths would embarrass China, and end the careers of a lot of bureaucrats. No one knew how big the Pandemic would be. What would be “normal” fatalities in other nations? So much of the world’s goods came from China. What sort of global panic would occur if no nation would allow Chinese goods in? While their fatality statistics are quite ridiculous, did anyone (anywhere) truly want to know the real numbers?
Also, consider China’s hospital construction plan. China claims that they were building new hospitals in as little as 6 days. In another report, 16 new hospitals were built around Wuhan in just 16 days. Is that even possible? Well, yes. If we look at America’s own history in WW II, we started that war with a cargo ship taking a year to build, but we ended it with building thousands of cargo ships in just 24 days and with a few built in less than a week.
However, that cargo ship story has another side. American ship-builders needed to dramatically change because German and Japanese submarines were obliterating our merchant shipping. America would have lost WWII if we couldn’t move equipment and people around the world. That’s a lot of motivation. For a similar acceleration in building hospitals, did China have a similar existential motivation? Building a hospital (many hospitals?) in just 6 days just doesn’t fit with a mere 5,000 COVID-19 fatalities
Now that we do know what sort of fatality rate other nations experienced, we can say that China’s reported numbers are about 1,000 times too low. Rather than 5,000, it should have been in the millions. It might have been several times higher since China was the first nation hit by COVID-19.
Japan has very credible medical reporting. Yet, their numbers are 80% to 90% lower than n the US. But we know that when the virus landed in Japan, it was a much less virulent form. Sometimes luck matters! Even if we used the much lower Japanese numbers as a “best case” scenario, China would be reporting less than 1% of the expected fatalities.
That leaves just one question. If there were millions of fatalities, where did all of the bodies go?
In China, 60% to 70% of corpses are cremated. That number is higher in major cities where we would expect the highest fatalities. Lockdowns put an end to public funerals. In Wuhan, there are 84 crematoriums. All of which appeared to have been running 24 by 7 at the height of the Pandemic. One news source found that cremations tripled in 2021. Conservatively, that hints at more than 2 million COVID-19 deaths across China in just one year.
When discussing China and numbers, or “truth” you can’t forget the “Great Firewall of China”. This is a comprehensive system of censorship that China built over the last 20 years. This Firewall can block individual emails or can cut off communications from entire nations. China is very clear that their Internet includes very public, and very thorough censorship. China comprehensively tracks the use of social media, computers, and smartphones. Public disagreement with official government policies automatically alerts government regulators and WILL have a lasting impact on your life. There is very little discussion in China about the accuracy of ANY government numbers.
Inconvenient truths… and the numbers that support them… can be hidden. For a while. In some places, technology will help expose the truth; in other places, technology can hide the truth. China has invested more than any other nation on earth to control all news and official numbers. It looks like they succeeded. For now.
Millions of Chinese citizens probably died during the pandemic. But as you can see, numbers leave traces. Numbers have a rationale to them. While it may be too dangerous for Chinese citizens to discuss millions of dead Chinese today, eventually the true story will be revealed. Which is the real magic of numbers.