Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China

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The “2021 academic study”

Definitely edit war material here, but let’s try anyway. In response to Mx. Granger’s edit summary: I think there’s a critical distinction between nationality and ethnicity. Suggesting that Chinese people, wherever they are, must be biased on issues concerning Mainland China is arguably racist. But there are plenty of overseas Chinese (of which I am one).

On the other hand, I doubt anyone who knows the first thing about China would dispute that Mainland Chinese are quite nationalistic, and that the Chinese government is authoritarian and heavily influences what research can be published by state employees (of whom 17 of the 18 authors in the study were).

It is also worth noting that the article is all but contradictory. It’s unfortunately buried deep, but a passage cites a Washington Post story which in turn references two estimates circulated by locals on social media of the COVID death toll in Wuhan (based on the numerous photos of urns released by the seven funeral homes and the number of furnaces known be to operated by them in total): 42,000 and 46,800, as opposed to the ~2,500 official figure. The Radio Free Asia piece also quotes a resident of the surrounding Hubei province who says that most people in the area believe there to have been over 40,000 COVID deaths in Wuhan.

On that basis, I support pointing out the likely conflict of interest among the authors behind the study in question, particularly when it’s the only one we have on the subject. Encyclopedia Lu (talk) 21:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense for the article to randomly note the ethnicities (or nationalities) of the authors of a source we're citing. Are there any reliable sources that say the authors of the study have a conflict of interest? If there are such sources, then we can cite them. But if this is just an insinuation that we are making up, it's not suitable for Wikipedia per WP:OR. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 22:04, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

You don't need another source to question the credibility of a particular source. You need to assess them yourself by matching the standards provided at WP:RS. It does not deserve to be on the lead anyway per the reasons provided by Encyclopedia Lu. Nor it should be used for countering reliable sources which one other editor had just removed by falsely marking them as "fringe". Remember that the sentence "Many news outlets reported that the Chinese government had deliberately under-reported the extent of infections and deaths" was added only after strong consensus at Talk:COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China/Archive 2#In the lead. Even after that lead was published, the reliable sources continued to report the intended underreporting by China.[1][2] TolWol56 (talk) 10:53, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The BMJ is a reliable source for epidemiological information; this is not affected by the ethnicities of the scientists who contribute to it. The CCDC study you reference estimating the true number of cases in Wuhan should be covered in the article; I will add it in a moment. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:05, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Mx. Granger: I haven't read everything TolWol56 has written here, but I would consider it a personal attack if someone accused me of xenophobia for wanting to exercise caution with publications from Chinese on this subject when there are reports citing evidence of a gag order from the very top. I have yet to see you acknowledge the existence of this gag order in our discussions on this exact topic in Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19. LondonIP (talk) 02:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I haven't accused anyone of xenophobia. All I said is that The BMJ's reliability is not affected by the ethnicities of its contributors, and I stand by that statement. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The claims of 40,000 or more deaths are scientifically discredited.

First, the claims come from Chinese social media, and are based purely on speculation about numbers of urns delivered to funeral homes and how many cremations could theoretically be performed by those funeral homes. The speculation was incredibly shaky to begin with, because it's not actually based on any solid data and completely ignores the fact that people die of things other than COVID-19. In a city of 11 million people, in fact, you'd expect several tens of thousands of people to die of non-COVID-related causes over the course of 76 days (the length of Wuhan's lockdown).

Second, a study of excess mortality published by The BMJ concludes that approximately 4600 more people than usual died of pneumonia in Wuhan during the outbreak. Outside of Hubei province, there was actually a decrease in pneumonia deaths. The authors attribute this decrease to the fact that the outbreak was mostly contained to Wuhan and a few surrounding cities, and that lockdown measures elsewhere in China reduced flu transmission. This mortality estimate is close to the official death toll, but 10x smaller than the numbers that Radio Free Asia and other news media talked about (based on Chinese social media, as I explained above).

Third, multiple serological studies (Nature Medicine, The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific) have estimated the fraction of people in Wuhan, Hubei province and China who ever contracted the virus. These studies find that only a few percent of people in Wuhan were ever infected, and that infection rates were so low that they were undetectable (with the given sample size) outside of Hubei province. This level of infection is consistent with the official death toll, and with the death toll estimated by the paper in The BMJ. It is completely inconsistent with the death tolls speculated about by Radio Free Asia (again, based on Chinese social media).

Fourth, various scientific studies have noted the lack of infections and deaths among Hong Kong and Taiwan residents in China. A study published by The Lancet Medicine found that just 4% of evacuees from Hubei province (mostly from Wuhan itself) to Hong Kong were seropositive. This is consistent with what the seroprevalence studies I linked to above found, and it's again consistent with the official death toll and the excess mortality estimate published in The BMJ. And a commentary article in the scientific journal Global Public Health notes that despite the fact that large numbers of people from Taiwan and Hong Kong live in Wuhan, none of them died in the Wuhan outbreak. The authors note that it certainly would have been publicized if any of them had. This puts an upper limit on the number of COVID-19 deaths in Wuhan that is many times lower than what Radio Free Asia speculated.

Basically, the situation is that all the scientific evidence points to the official death toll being roughly correct. On the other hand, we have social media speculation that was briefly picked up by Radio Free Asia (which is US government media, and which has an explicit mandate to report negatively on China) and then by other international outlets back in late March / early April 2020. So, which are we going to give more weight: peer-reviewed scientific research published in highly reliable international scientific journals, or "Some people on social media are saying" articles published almost two years ago in news outlets?

Finally, the fact that a scientist is Chinese is totally irrelevant, and everyone needs to stop discussing the nationality of authors on scientific papers. These are papers that have gone through rigorous peer-review and editorial review at leading international scientific journals. Writing them off because of the authors' nationality is unseemly, to put it very politely. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

A study which is largely written by those who are employees of Chinese state fails WP:RS. On the other hand we have FT, Time, Economist, and many more reliable sources which you falsely smear as "fringe". You need to find independent western sources which lacks a WP:COI in the study and debunks these sources. But that is never gonna happen because China has grossly underreported the stats and it is beyond obvious. You are using your own personal views to dispute high quality WP:RS which tantamounts to WP:OR. How these sources [3][4] are "two years ago"?

Now here are some actual "scientific" studies that prove that China intentionally underreported figures: Estimating the Unreported Number of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Cases in China in the First Half of January 2020: A Data-Driven Modelling Analysis of the Early Outbreak, The COVID-19 outbreak in Sichuan, China: Epidemiology and impact of interventions, Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Jiangxi, China, China’s Post-COVID Challenges and many more. ​TolWol56 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 06:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The studies looking at actual data and not modeling mentioned by Thucydides are peer-reviewed and despite your claim most of those peer-reviewers have no relation to the chinese government, simply dismissing studies you don't like despite their legitimacy is not reason enough to remove them from the article.

Mentioning the fact that some news outlets have claimed that china is significantly undercounting it's numbers is reasonable but the edit you propose mentions it in a way that presents it as a likely truth, seemingly because you believe it is one despite the evidence otherwise.

Please also do not make misleading edit summarys that fail to mention the deletion of a mention of a study, or attempt to make your edit without first coming to a consensus here. Xoltered (talk) 11:13, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I never made a 'misleading edit summary', but restored sourced content that you WP:DONTLIKE. See Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#COVID_pandemic_in_China. The faulty study fails WP:MEDSRS and must be avoided. I am reverting your misleading edit per WP:FTN and above. What you are restoring never had consensus, while "Chinese government had deliberately under-reported the extent of infections and deaths" was added only after strong consensus at Talk:COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China/Archive 2#In the lead. TolWol56 (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Your supposed description of my edit is a perfect description of your edit. The Study is not faulty just because you WP:DONTLIKE it, I simply undid you edit removing such content, adding mentions of the media reports is reasonable as i mentioned before but the study is notable and reliable. Xoltered (talk) 13:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, just because there was consensus nearly 2 years ago about something doesn't mean that your new edit isn't a new edit or that it doesn't require consensus or that keeping the existing version during dicussion somehow does Xoltered (talk) 13:43, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

At least it had consensus unlike that nonsense you are trying to promote by using a CCP controlled study. Your edit is very new and require consensus. Read WP:CONSENSUS. And do you mean that I WP:DONTLIKE a CCP controlled faulty study? Yeah I don't. And if you liked it and want to promote it over everybody else then you are engaging in disruption. TolWol56 (talk) 04:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Please stop edit-warring, everyone. As far as I can tell, none of the four sources cited in this edit support the claim. We can't include a claim like this in the article unless it is supported by reliable sources. Moreover, for epidemiological information, peer-reviewed journals like The BMJ are more reliable than early, speculative media reports. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 19:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, scientific papers supersede early media reports and consensus from nearly 2 years ago, before those papers even existed are not justification for inclusion. Hopefully edit warring is over as the discussion seems quite clearly resolved. Xoltered (talk) 04:34, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Why you are lecturing? I don't think you have credibility in this discussion since you have praised the faulty study in question and claimed it to be more credible than FT, Time, etc. when the study is primary not peer reviewed and it also fails WP:MEDRS. All of the sources support the information by saying that China exercised top-level censorship to control the figures. Where is the consensus against the removal of this well-sourced content? TolWol56 (talk) 04:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The study from The BMJ is peer-reviewed. None of the four sources currently cited seem to support the claim in the article – I don't see anything saying that numerous experts say the Chinese government deliberately underreported infections and deaths. Even if we rephrased the sentence so it followed the sources, the peer-reviewed journal article would still be more reliable for this topic than the early media reports. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 19:04, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Your misrepresentation won't fly especially when one of the source outright accuse China of lying about Vividh stats.[5] FT is also very detailed and so are others. At the end of the day they are more reliable than the primary research you are upholding. TolWol56 (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with Thucydides411 above. There is a clear consensus in top sources (academic journals) that China did not fudge their COVID statistics. The nationality of the authors is not relevant since these journals go through international peer review. This is not the only issue where jargon-filled, paywalled scientific journals say one thing, and a narrative in the mainstream media says another. Unfortunately this can be confusing to people, but our policies are clear. Academic sources always outweigh non-academic sources, per WP:SOURCETYPES. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:25, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Better don't. Now here are some actual "scientific" studies that prove that China underreported figures: Estimating the Unreported Number of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Cases in China in the First Half of January 2020: A Data-Driven Modelling Analysis of the Early Outbreak, The COVID-19 outbreak in Sichuan, China: Epidemiology and impact of interventions, Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Jiangxi, China, China’s Post-COVID Challenges and many more. TolWol56 (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

First, I'd like to point out to you that 3 of the 4 links you've just posted are studies by Chinese scientists. You and a few others have been arguing that work by Chinese scientists can't be trusted because they're all supposedly controlled by the Chinese government. Yet you have no problem citing their work when you think it advances your argument. I just want you to see the irony of that. I'm glad we both agree that peer-reviewed research by Chinese scientists is a perfectly good source.

Second, the sources do not state or imply that the Chinese government deliberately underreported cases. Virtually every country on Earth underreports cases by a very large margin, for the simple reason that most cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection go undetected (by public health authorities). In Germany, there's a well known term for this: "die Dunkelziffer" (the dark number). It's generally understood that many people who are infected with the virus do not get tested. This was even more the case early on in the pandemic, when testing capacity was extremely limited and only heavily symptomatic people were able to get tested. There was a lot of research early on in the pandemic to try to find out what the "Dunkelziffer" was.

Seroprevalence studies are the best way to understand the total rate of infection in a population. All the way back in May-July 2020, around 20% of people in New York City had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, indicating that they had been infected. This was far higher than the official case count.

Chinese scientists have published estimates of the total numbers of infections in the initial outbreak, centered on Wuhan. As expected, the number is higher than the number of people who ever tested positive or got a diagnosis from a doctor. Here's what the paper says:

Extrapolation of these results implies that after the first wave of COVID-19 in China, approximately 500,000 people in Wuhan City, 210,000 people in Hubei-ex-Wuhan, and 120,000 people in provinces outside Hubei had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and therefore had been infected. Estimated seropositivity was highly correlated with reported COVID-19 incidence.

We can cite these estimates and explain why they differ from the official case count (most infections are never detected), but the claim that cases were deliberately suppressed is unsupported.

Deaths are a different issue. It's much easier to accurately track deaths than infections, and every scientific source on mortality and seroprevalence in China indicates that the official death toll is roughly accurate. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:47, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

"You and a few others have been arguing that work by Chinese scientists can't be trusted" misrepresents my position and you have been warned many times for this false allegation on your talk page too.[6]

It is true that "Virtually every country on Earth underreports cases" but China topped all of them by coming up with the most unbelievable statistics and top-level censorship regarding the covid-19 stats.

No matter how much you want to WP:CENSOR this fact it will still remain there. I would encourage you to stop trying. TolWol56 (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• Those who are familiar with Wikipedia's policy on WP:BESTSOURCES already understand that the claim of China under reporting COVID numbers is WP:FRINGE. It doesn't deserve the WP:WEIGHT editors are trying to give it here. ––FormalDude talk 11:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, peer-reviewed scientific papers will always supersede early media reports, very unfortunate that this page was locked with the version not supported by policy or nearly all editors here. Xoltered (talk) 21:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

But the primary research controlled by CCP isnt one of them. TolWol56 (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

 Comment: @TolWol56: said And do you mean that I WP:DONTLIKE a CCP controlled faulty study? Yeah I don't. without any sources backing up that the study is CCP controlled. How did you come to this conclusion? Antiok 1pie (talk) 00:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Read the first message of this thread by the OP. You don't need another source to question the credibility of this source. You need to assess them yourself by matching the standards provided at WP:IRS. TolWol56 (talk) 02:35, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

We have assessed it, just because it was written by people who are Chinese does not make it "CCP Controlled", and anyway, it is peer-reviewed, including by people who are not Chinese, Just because you DONTLIKE the paper doesn't mean it is faulty. Please either provide some actual justification for your view that the study is unreliable, or end the discussion. Xoltered (talk) 04:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I would rather trust this article The Atlantic which is WP:RS that: "Early on, it became clear that Chinese authorities were lying about the disease’s human toll. Nick Paton of CNN in December 2020 reported on 117 pages of internal Chinese government documents suggesting that the local authorities in Wuhan had massively underreported COVID-19 infections in the early weeks of the outbreak. In January 2021, HBO aired a documentary by the director Nanfu Wang minutely detailing the Chinese undercount." TolWol56 (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• The current lead was indeed written after consensus as mentioned above and I was one of the writer of it. Chinese studies, given their pro-fringe history, about Covid-19 must be discarded in comparison with other sources that we generally consider to be reliable. They can be attributed in article body as contrary view but certainly not on the lead. NavjotSR (talk) 05:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  The BMJ, Nature Medicine and The Lancet: Regional Health Western Pacific are highly reputable journals. When it comes to claims about epidemiology or public health, these are far more reliable sources than newspapers. It does not matter what the nationalities of the scientists are, and I'm disturbed that you're using that as a reason to disregard peer-reviewed papers published in highly reputable scientific journals.

  Scientifically speaking, the claim that China's death toll is much higher than reported is WP:FRINGE, regardless of whether a few popular media articles (written by non-experts and not subject to any sort of scientific peer review) entertained this idea all the way back in March/April 2020.

  One of the popular magazine articles from April 2020 we're citing right now (in the Time Magazine) even speculated that the decline in China's case numbers in March 2020 was due to manipulation, and that the epidemic was about to rebound in China. As we now all know, the outbreak really did end by April 2020, and it didn't rebound. Time Magazine was simply wrong on this. That shouldn't surprise anyone. It's popular media, written by non-experts. It's not a good source for information on epidemiology. Putting whatever a writer at Time Magazine chooses to write down above peer-reviewed scientific papers published in highly reputable scientific journals, simply because the scientists are Chinese, is insanely inappropriate. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:32, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Nature say: "a large number of subclinical and asymptomatic infected individuals might have been undetected."

Lancet say: "Limitations to our study included that seven of mainland China's 31 provinces were assessed, rather than all provinces." Where does it dispute the reports about underreporting of Covid-19 cases by China?

Now this is absurd: "Scientifically speaking, the claim that China's death toll is much higher than reported is WP:FRINGE, regardless of whether a few popular media articles (written by non-experts and not subject to any sort of scientific peer review) entertained this idea all the way back in March/April 2020." Because it is clearer than "sky is blue" that China has intentionally underreported the amount of Covid-19 cases. Unlike your CCP-controlled study, these sources which are being used on the article are not known for promoting pseudoscience.

Since you have mentioned New York, a journal from Frontier say "Similar to New York, our estimates of COVID incidence in Mainland China, Italy, Germany, and Egypt indicate that the outbreaks in each country peaked before daily case counts would indicate. Additionally, the attack rate of the virus appears to be far higher in each example than could be derived from naïve case counts."

Read this most recent publication from PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal, it says that Wuhan COVID infections were at least 3 times higher than the official figure. Reuters also detailed this study.[7]

You can easily find more scientific "journals" that completely contradict your views. TolWol56 (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

TolWol56 You can easily find more scientific "journals" that completely contradict your views: None of the papers you cite contradicts what I'm saying. I'm saying that in every country, particularly early in the pandemic, most infections were not detected. The true number of cases is always far higher than the reported number, for almost every country on Earth, not because governments are hiding the true figures, but because they simply don't know them. You cite a Nature article that says, a large number of subclinical and asymptomatic infected individuals might have been undetected. This is exactly my point. Asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic infections were missed early on in China, as the Nature article explains. This has nothing to do with the government hiding the truth. Nobody was testing asymptomatic people in the first weeks of the pandemic. There wasn't even enough testing capacity to keep up with the hospitalized patients in Wuhan. If you're trying to use this Nature paper to argue that China covered up its true case count, you've simply misunderstood the paper.

The PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases paper you cite also makes the exact same point I'm making. Before getting into that, I'd like you to note that the authors of this paper are Chinese. You've been using the phrase "CCP-controlled" as a code word for "written by Chinese scientists." Yet here you've cited a paper written by Chinese scientists, which you think supports your argument - is the work of Chinese scientists only acceptable when they confirm your view? But the paper you're referencing doesn't, in fact, support your views. As the paper makes clear, the reason why the true number of infections is larger than the reported number of cases is that asymptomatic carriers can unwittingly transmit the SARS-CoV-2 virus person-to-person. The whole purpose of the paper is to get around the problem that most people who get infected never get tested. That's why the authors looked at serology. Again, this is something that's done around the world to estimate the true number of infections, which is almost always far higher than the reported number of cases.

Finally, you quote from a paper in Frontiers in Big Data. The quote you give makes my point for me: official case counts nearly everywhere in the world are far lower than true numbers of infections. Here's another quote from the article: our analysis suggests over 2 million residents of New York state had been infected by the novel coronavirus as of 1 May, a far higher figure than estimates derived from confirmed case counts. This isn't because New York state was hiding the true figures. It's because most people who were infected never got a PCR test. Many of them probably didn't even feel symptoms.

Scientific studies paint a consistent picture: a few hundred thousand people were infected in China, and around 4,600 more people died of pneumonia than would be expected in a non-pandemic year. This picture is wildly inconsistent with the social media conspiracy theory about 40,000+ deaths that Radio Free Asia, Time Magazine and other popular media discussed back in March/April 2020. That conspiracy theory is WP:FRINGE, and the fact that any popular outlets gave it airtime is a warning about using these outlets for WP:EXCEPTIONAL scientific claims, not an argument for throwing out the peer-reviewed scientific literature. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:07, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

The Study is not a fringe study and is peer-reviewed, dismissing all Chinese studies simply because some are faulty is ridiculous, as many have stated here, the study is considered reliable. Xoltered (talk) 07:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

It is a primary research, not peer-reviewed. TolWol56 (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

The paper is, indeed, peer-reviewed. It says so on The BMJ's page, below the article:

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

The BMJ even publishes the peer-review correspondence. Here's how reviewer 1 begins their assessment:

This is a very well conceived, executed and documented report of excess mortality in mainland China, focusing on the country's COVID-19 outbreak (2020Q1). The analysis was thoughtfully carried out and stratified by Wuhan, Hubei ex-Wuhan, and rest of the country ex-Hubei.

Here's how reviewer 2 begins their assessment:

This is a strong manuscript which establishes the COVID-era mortality within highly and less affected regions of China.

Where are you getting the idea that this paper is not peer-reviewed? -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:19, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Break

• @Encyclopedia Lu, TolWol56, and NavjotSR: I agree with you that we should exercise caution with publications from Chinese scientists that are subject to the Chinese government's gag order on COVID research. I have been trying arguing this point in the Chinese government response to COVID-19 talk page, but some editors refuse to acknowledge such censorship policy (which I also added to Academic_freedom#China), and instead I was attacked for singling out Chinese nationals. I suggest we move this discussion to RSN where I have posted a link to the Associated Press report about the censorship policy effecting COVID-19 research. LondonIP (talk) 02:31, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

As stated so many times by so many people, the study is peer-reviewed including by people who are not chinese, are the non chinese people also subject to chinese censorship? Do you have any actual justification beyond general fears about chinese censorship that this study is faulty? No? Then stop arguing that it is. Also there is no reason to move discussion. Xoltered (talk) 07:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Also will ping these people, as you pinged people in your message. @Thucydides411, Mx. Granger, and Novem Linguae: Xoltered (talk) 08:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The study isn't peer-reviewed but primary in nature. But of all, I largely agree with: "Read this most recent publication from PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal, it says that Wuhan COVID infections were at least 3 times higher than the official figure. Reuters also detailed this study.[8]" since Thucydides411 was relying on a 'recent scientific study', then I would say that you can't find anything better than this one at this moment. NavjotSR (talk) 04:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@NavjotSR: The paper is peer-reviewed. Where are you getting the idea that it isn't? A few comments above this, I explained that not only is the paper peer-reviewed, but you can actually read the reviewer comments and the authors' responses at the website of The BMJ. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:07, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

No one is disputing the number of infections in wuhan is undercounted, as in all countries, there was a significant undercounting of infections during the start of the pandemic, due to lack of testing. This distracts from the point being discussed. Xoltered (talk) 07:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Adding content regarding the undercounting would be good, however it cannot be conflated with deliberate lying about the numbers as is currently done. I would support replacing the current FRINGE content with content sourced from both this study and the study previously mentioned, which support a mostly accurate number of deaths and a significantly undercounted number of infections. I hope we can come to a consensus regarding this and the changes that we have discussed can be implemented. Xoltered (talk) 09:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Xoltered. Your pings did not go through. Perhaps because you modified an existing paragraph (added a space) in addition to adding a paragraph. I think you can only add paragraphs when pinging. Anyway, I still agree with Thucycdides. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear, I agree with Thucydides411 here too. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:29, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Agree with Encyclopedia Lu about the critical distinction between nationality and ethnicity as I am also of Chinese ethnicity. The Chinese government's influence over what can be published by state employees is well documented, as are the restrictions on independent scientists. There are many reports about China's peculiar infection and death figures and the believability of their case fatality rate being 50 times lower than Australia [9]. China has changed the way it counts cases a number of times early on the pandemic, in what was a described by Laurie Garrett on CNN as "egregious" [10]. As Garett said, China's infection and death rates don't make much sense, and this was covered also by the New York Times and the Guardian at the time [11] [12]. Unfortunately this dispute will have to be settled through RFC, or perhaps multiple RFCs. CutePeach (talk) 14:57, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

  We're simply not going to start censoring peer-reviewed scientific papers published in leading international journals, simply because the authors are Chinese nationals. That would be blatantly discriminatory, and we're not going down that road as an encyclopedia. With all due respect, the scientific editors and expert peer-reviewers at Nature, The Lancet and The BMJ are much better judges than you (or I) are of what is legitimate scientific research and what is reliable. We're not going to throw out their judgment because you feel that Chinese scientists are unreliable.

  As for China's infection and death rates, these have been well established by the very scientific studies that you're trying to rule out. About 4600 more people died of pneumonia than usual in Wuhan during the outbreak, which is roughly in line with official death toll. About 4% of people in Wuhan were infected, which is in line with the mortality figures. The estimated number of infections is larger than the official case count, for reasons that are well understood (most cases of SARS-CoV-2 are never diagnosed). These same reasons apply all around the world: estimated infection rates in the US are also far higher than official case counts.

  China has changed the way it counts cases a number of times early on the pandemic. Of course it did. This was a novel virus that nobody had ever seen before. The case definition changed in the first few weeks as more was learned about the virus and as testing capacity was ramped up. The CNN article you linked to notes that the reasons for the changes were sensible, and actually increased the numbers of reported cases, rather than decreasing them:

  David Fisman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto, said the way that officials define cases of a virus often evolves as their understanding of the illness develops.

  "One could change a case definition for sort of nefarious reasons to create the illusion that the epidemic is getting better. In this case, China did exactly the opposite," he said. "They broadened their case definition when they needed to, in order not to miss cases, and now that things are under control they're narrowing it down again to make it consistent to easier to keep track of what's really going on."

  Let's go by what the scientific studies say. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) The nationalities of the authors are just as irrelevant as their ethnicities. I am not sure how any of us would know their nationalities anyway – I would ask for sources, but it is completely irrelevant, as The BMJ is a reliable source for this material regardless. I am really surprised we're having to have this discussion. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:29, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed it does not appear that those opposing this have anything to say beyond what has already been said, popular media speculation do not supersede scientific data, and general chinese censorship does not mean this specific study (which is even peer-reviewed by non chinese scientists) is faulty, groups like Nature, The Lancet and The BMJ are reliable and this study is reliable.

  China changing how they count cases, such as counting asymptomatic cases separately, is not lying about the numbers as all the information on how cases are and were counted are public.

  Also, not sure what Peach means by china's infection and death rates don't make sense, the rate is consistent with other countries during the early pandemic, as previously stated, china, like most other countries, does have an undercounting of infections due to lack of testing at the start of the pandemic but this is not at all the same as deliberate lying about the numbers.

  I hope this discussion can stop going in circles. Xoltered (talk) 23:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Tell me then, are the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, the Journal of Cellular Physiology, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Phytotherapy Research, Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, Life Sciences, and Cell Cycle all reliable journals? Peer reviewed and all that? And yet they were all found to be publishing studies with falsified data from top level physicians across China. So, your claim of authority from The Lancet and such doesn't hold much water (especially when all of those journals you've listed have also had their own scandals on falsified studies). Them being highly rated journals has no bearing on the issue of falsified data and peer review, as completely fabricated data is impossible for peer reviewers to pick up on, because they only have the data within the presented studies to go off of. Silverseren^C 00:51, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Silver seren: I've never heard of those other journals, but I have heard of The Lancet, Nature, and The BMJ, as they're all established, reputable academic journals. What sources cast doubt on the reliability of their studies related to the topic? ––FormalDude talk 09:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  As stated on the Reliable Sources page (why are we having this discussion on so many different pages?), the idea that some group could simply falsify data and then it would be peer-reviewed and broadly accepted would mean this would regularly happen and be a huge problem in science, but it's not, simply put, no they couldn't, if they falsified data there would be actual evidence (not speculation from popular media based on nearly nothing), they did but there isn't. Xoltered (talk) 11:02, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Xoltered: those editors opposing your point of view in this discussion and the other one have said:

1. Chinese censorship is specific to COVID-19 and not "general", as you have said - twice [13] [14]. This WP:INDEPENDENT concern should be discussed further on the [[WP:RS/N] to get a higher level of consensus.
2. The scholarly sources provided don't prove the accuracy of China's figures. For example, no scholarly sources provided counter the claim from the BBC, SCMP and Caixin that China does not include asymptomatic cases in its official case tally. A paper merely mentioning asymptomatic cases and something about how asymptomatic cases are counted separately, does prove that all such cases are included in the official tally. This is an WP:OR concern that can be discussed on WP:OR/N.
3. There are multiple reasons given for why China's infection and death rates don't make sense, as well as their case fatality rate - which is supposedly 50 times lower than Australia's. It is true there was a lack of testing, as reported in this ABC News piece [15], but as Foreign Policy and other RS have alleged, China may be concealing information. The stack of urns in Wuhan is not the only story on this topic, though it was widely reported and is WP:DUE for inclusion in this article [16].

CutePeach (talk) 15:35, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Article protected

I have fully protected the article to stop the current edit warring. I will watch this page and will remove the protection when a discussion establishes a consensus on what should occur. Any administrator is welcome to remove protection (restoring the previous infinite semi-protection or possibly setting ECP protection) without consulting me. Johnuniq (talk) 05:58, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Why was the page locked with the proposed version and not the existing version? Should the existing version not be kept during discussion, especially as it is quite clear from discussion above; policy and nearly all editors here support the existing version. Xoltered (talk) 21:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Doubly unfortunate as i spotted an unclear date where the year is not clarified which I wanted to change but am unable to due to this protection Xoltered (talk) 07:17, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: I'm not sure if your aware but those who oppose the growing consensus have tried to FORUMSHOP by taking the discussion to Talk:Chinese_government_response_to_COVID-19 and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard and apparently more places I am unaware of Xoltered (talk) 00:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm totally unaware of all things related to this disagreement. There is no way forward other than WP:DR which boils down to either getting a good consensus that a particular edit should occur (in which case protection will be lifted), or by an WP:RFC. Johnuniq (talk) 01:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

It appears something like that will be necessary as some editors are now just repeating already addressed points rather than challenging the responses or stating new ones. Xoltered (talk) 07:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

It might be possible that the points you think have already been addressed, remain in the minds of other editors as a major concern. WP:CON says Posting a neutrally worded notice of the dispute on applicable noticeboards will make the dispute more visible to other editors who may have worthwhile opinions. It is not WP:FORUMSHOP to take this discussion to a noticeboard, and the feedback from the WP:FRINGE noticeboard affirms our concerns with Chinese scholarship on the subject of COVID-19. CutePeach (talk) 14:52, 19 January 2022 (UTC)