Virus data: What's known and not known about China's numbers

BEIJING (AP) — Every few days brings another grim milestone in the coronavirus outbreak. First Italy and Spain surpassed China in reported deaths. Then, this week, the U.S. and France did.

But did they really?

Skepticism about China's numbers has swirled throughout the crisis, fueled by official efforts to quash bad news in the early days and a general distrust of the government. Long lines of people waiting to collect the ashes of loved ones at funeral homes last week revived the debate.

There is no smoking gun pointing to a cover-up by China's ruling Communist Party. But intentional or not, there is reason to believe that more people died of COVID-19 than the official tally, which stood at 3,312 at the end of Tuesday. The same applies to the 81,554 confirmed cases, now exceeded by the U.S., Italy and Spain.

The health system in Wuhan, the city where three-fourths of China's victims died, was overwhelmed at the peak of the outbreak. Hospitals overflowed, patients with symptoms were sent home and there weren't enough kits to test everyone. In any country, getting a complete picture in the fog of war is virtually impossible.

“The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 by country appears like a grim league table and draws the attention of many," said Hsu Li Yang, who heads the infectious diseases program at the National University of Singapore. “However, it is important to understand that these numbers – be it from China, Italy, Singapore or the U.S.A. – are all inaccurate, and they are all underestimates to varying degrees of the actual number of infections."

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