We are also being very liberal with our count. If someone has a heart attack and tests positive for Covid19 we count it as a death from the disease. Other countries do not. I know Italy did count that way, they said some were dying with but not from the disease.
I have been following the numbers on worldometers for a while now. I like that they give the number serious/critical cases. The worlds percent recently dropped to 4% from a steady 5%. USA has been staying between 2.25 - 2.85%
This is why I never believed 100k-240k deaths were possible. My prediction was and is under 50k. At 2-3% serious we would need millions of cases to get 100k deaths.
They started telling number of tests in each state now as well.
This post was edited by my2cents at April 12, 2020 2:06 PM MDT
Russia had hardly any confirmed cases until towards the end of March, when they started on a steep upward trajectory. They now stand at about 15,000, which is proportionally more than those confirmed in Ukraine but fewer than in Belarus - the differences may be down to the extensiveness of the testing programme, or other factors. But I don't think it necessarily suggests a cover-up. If the infection rate is a lot lower than the USA or much of Western Europe, it may be in part because they were very pro-active about imposing land border controls and enforced self-quarantine for infected people, including using facial recognition software to spot breaches.
East Asian countries seem to have been better at suppressing the pandemic than Western countries, in that confirmed cases are rising a lot more slowly. This may be partly down to cultural factors and partly because they took the threat a lot more seriously from day one because of their experience with SARS.
But I think you are right to be a little sceptical about the Chinese figures given the government's history of lying about this and other epidemics.
I would think that there may be some differences in how the dead are counted.. but.. whether this is so, or whether it statistically makes much difference is debatable and impossible to tell.
The UK counts deaths that are covid, regardless of whether there are underlying health issues such as cardiac disease. However, the UK doesn't count, by their own admission, deaths in care homes or at home.. only hospitals.. Not a cover up, just a logistical difficulty in coordinating and counting..
I don't really see why anyone has reason to lie... it's a horrible thing.. and we are all in it together. Not sure that accusing others and blaming or congratulating yourselves on less deaths is really very helpful at this point.
China has very high need of its populace.. so they have an investment in preventing deaths. Their people tend to be way more obedient... it's conceivable that their have only slightly misrepresented the situation at worst
