SinoInsight 1
Various open source information indicates that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is far worse than what the CCP regime has officially revealed:
According to various studies, patients with the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) are capable of passing on the virus to at least two or more people.
- A study by British infectious disease specialist Neil Ferguson estimates the basic reproduction number (R0) at 2.6;
- Researchers at the Guangzhou Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention estimate R0 to be 2.9;
- WHO estimate R0 at between 1.4 to 2.5;
- Researchers at Lancaster University put the R0 at between 3.6 to 4.0.
On Jan. 27, many local provincial and city governments extended the Spring Festival holiday period for companies and schools. The Jilin local government ordered workers not to return for work until after midnight on Feb.2. Meanwhile, the local governments of Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu ordered companies to have their employees return to work only after midnight on Feb. 9; Shanghai required schools to extend their holidays until Feb. 17.
In the evening of Jan. 27, the Hubei provincial government held a press conference on the Wuhan virus. According to mainland media reports, Hubei deputy governor Yang Yunyan said that the local government had designated 112 hospitals and medical institutions as treatment centers for patients infected with the virus and that “nearly 100,000 beds will be made available” (開放床位近10萬張). Shortly after the news was reported, however, mainland media outlets deleted the information “nearly 100,000 beds will be made available.”
Late on Jan. 27, the World Health Organization admitted an error in its risk assessment of the Wuhan virus, and noted that risk levels are “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.” Previously, the WHO said that global risk levels were “moderate.”
On Jan. 28, China’s National Health Commission held a press conference in Beijing on the Wuhan virus. According to mainland media reports, Li Xingwang, a member of the NHC’s national medical expert group, said that they had found that some people had been tested positive for the virus despite showing mild symptoms (slight fever, coughing, fatigue, etc.) or even no symptoms at all. Earlier, NHC head Ma Xiaowei had said that patients who have the virus but show no symptoms or have not yet developed them are still able to spread the virus. The coronavirus has an incubation period of between two to 14 days.
On Jan. 29, Xi Jinping described the Wuhan virus as “devil” in a meeting with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
OUR TAKE
1. As of midnight (24:00 hours) on Jan. 27, the Hubei local government reported 2,714 confirmed cases of people infected with the virus and 2,567 patients hospitalized. That same evening, the Hubei government announced (and later censored) that it was preparing “nearly 100,000” hospital beds, or nearly 40 times as many patients that were hospitalized. This suggests that the virus outbreak in Hubei Province is very severe and that the actual number of confirmed cases likely far exceeds the official figures put out by the CCP regime.
Before Jan. 27, some medical staff in Wuhan had disclosed on Chinese social media that close to 100,000 people in their city had been infected with the new coronavirus. This figure corresponds with the Hubei government’s censored information about making available “nearly 100,000” beds.
2. The latest information about the Wuhan virus outbreak and the WHO’s revised risk levels affirm our analysis in the emergency warning we issued on Jan. 24. Based on our understanding of the CCP culture and its past handling of serious medical incidents, we assessed that “there is now a serious epidemic in Wuhan and the beginnings of a humanitarian crisis in mainland China.”
We wrote that “by conservative estimate, there could now be tens of thousands of cases and thousands of deaths caused by the Wuhan virus. Given the CCP’s response to the virus outbreak thus far, we believe that the epidemic could potentially impact hundreds of thousands to millions of people in China.”
In light of recent information, we believe that the scale of the epidemic could even exceed our estimate on Jan. 24.
3. In our Jan. 24 emergency warning, we wrote that the Wuhan virus outbreak would result in “disruption of supply chains in China.” Western media have already started reporting on the phenomenon we identified. On Jan. 28, Bloomberg News published a piece titled “Apple Supply Chain Braces for Disruption From Coronavirus” which noted that “virtually all of the world’s iPhones are made in China, primarily by Foxconn’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. at its so-called iPhone City in Zhengzhou and by Pegatron Corp. at an assembly site near Shanghai” and cited a veteran industry analyst as saying that he “can’t imagine a scenario where the supply chain isn’t disrupted.”
Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu are key drivers of economic development in China; many foreign companies are based in Shanghai. The prolonged Spring Festival holiday enforced by the local governments of Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu will disrupt supply chains and likely delay the influx of foreign investments.
Global supply chains will likely be profoundly disrupted as the epidemic worsens in mainland China.
SinoInsight 2
On Jan. 25, Xi Jinping chaired a Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) meeting on the Wuhan virus outbreak. State media reported that the meeting decided to set up a CCP Central Committee leading group to oversee epidemic prevention and control work and that the leading group will operate under the guidance of the PBSC. Subsequent state media reports identified Li Keqiang as the head of the new leading group.
On Jan. 27, Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang defended his government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in a live interview on CCTV. Wang admitted that his government had responded “too late” (不及时) and sought “understanding” for why this was so. “As local government, I can only publicize [the virus outbreak] after receiving information and being authorized to do so; many did not understand this point at the time,” he said. “Subsequently, and especially after the State Council executive meeting on Jan. 20 … requested local responsibility, we took much more initiative in our work,” Zhou added. Zhou Xianwang acknowledged that many people are angry with the Wuhan government for locking down the city and its handling of the virus outbreak, and have called for him to resign—something that he is willing to contemplate “if the epidemic is under control.” State media later scrubbed Zhou’s interview with CCTV.
OUR TAKE
1. It is clear from the above news items that CCP officials from the local governments to Party Central are trying to avoid being held responsible for the regime’s handling of the epidemic crisis.
2. Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang revealed in his Jan. 27 CCTV interview that it was the central government, not the local government, that was ultimately responsible for not acknowledging the Wuhan virus outbreak until Jan. 20. Zhou probably seized the opportunity of a live interview by state media to expose CCP internal deliberations so that he could get the word out before being scrubbed by the censors and avoid being scapegoated later.
Two plausible explanations for why Party Central belatedly confirmed the virus outbreak can be distilled from information that is currently publicly available.
According to one source, Chinese scientists initially did not think that the virus was a threat early on because the samples they got from a patient’s upper respiratory tract tested negative for a SARS-like coronavirus (SARS causes upper respiratory tract illnesses and the scientists were expecting the virus to resemble SARS). It was only later when more cases were reported that scientists used lower respiratory tract samples and realized that they were dealing with a new coronavirus capable of human-to-human transmission. Thus, inaccurate testing resulted in a delayed response by Party Central and the local governments.
Another explanation involves the CCP’s habit of suppressing bad news around “sensitive” periods like political conclaves and festive seasons. On Jan. 26, prominent China pro-democracy activist and China watcher Han Lianchao tweeted information that the Wuhan government had notified the PRC health ministry in early January and that PRC national and local level health authorities had already released the genome of the Wuhan virus on Jan. 12 (an indication that the central government already knew about the virus). While the PRC State Council had planned to carry out national prevention and control measures based on the SARS experience, Party Central ultimately vetoed the move at the time so as not to interfere with the Spring Festival mood.
3. State mouthpiece Xinhua’s reporting of the PBSC meeting on Jan. 25 noted that the meeting decided to establish a leading group to tackle the Wuhan virus outbreak but did not say at the time who was in charge. State media only wrote in subsequent reports that Li Keqiang headed the new leading group. This indicates that no one in the Party elite wants to be held ultimately responsible for the handling of what very likely is a regime-threatening crisis and Black Swan event.
Per CCP operations, public health issues, including epidemics, come under the purview of the State Council. This means that there is nothing unusual protocol-wise with Li Keqiang running the leading group overseeing the prevention and control of the Wuhan virus outbreak. Li’s appointment is only unusual in the sense that most leading groups are currently helmed by Xi Jinping.
Some commentators believe that Xi can now “conveniently” and “very publicly” remove Li if the latter cannot cope with the epidemic crisis. Given that Li is an ally of Hu Jintao and belongs in the Xi camp, it is unlikely that Xi Jinping intended to “conveniently” get rid of Li Keqiang by giving him an impossible task; it is more likely that Xi does not want to be personally held responsible. Xi will likely afford Li as much political protection for as long as possible, and only “sacrifice” Li as a political scapegoat when not doing so seriously threatens his grip on power or tips the balance of the CCP factional struggle decisively in his factional rivals’ favor.
In any event, Li Keqiang is a seasoned political operator and will strive for self-preservation first. In another tweet, Han Lianchao posted information about how Party Central wanted Li to tour Wuhan after news of a virus outbreak was known to the CCP elite. Li, however, refused and instead toured the city of Xining in Qinghai Province northwest of Hubei. In other words, Li, like all CCP officials, did not want to be easily scapegoated for the virus outbreak.
SinoInsight 3
According to mainland media reports on Jan. 28, the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Civil Affairs announced that it would suspend charges for the cremation of those who died from the new coronavirus (including those who were suspected to have died because of the virus). The Bureau also requested support for the moving of corpses (including more funeral vehicles), as well as additional manpower and protective gear, from the Wuhan epidemic prevention command and the Hubei provincial department of civil affairs.
According to data released by the Hubei Health Commission, as of the end of Jan. 29, Hubei Province had 4,586 confirmed coronavirus cases and 162 deaths; Wuhan City saw 2,261 confirmed cases (49.3 percent of confirmed cases in Hubei) and 129 deaths (79.6 percent of deaths in Hubei). The provincial health authorities are also tracking 28,780 people who have been in close contact with infected persons and 26,632 people have been placed under medical observation.
Our take:
1. In studying official figures provided by the CCP regime, other open source information, and information circulated by Chinese citizens on social media, we have strong reason to believe that the regime has been grossly underreporting the number of confirmed cases and deaths caused by the new coronavirus. By conservative estimates, we believe that the actual death rate is 35 times or greater than the official figure.
A survey of the publicly available information on virus deaths and cremation in Wuhan paints a telling picture:
– On Jan. 20, the CCP officially acknowledged the existence of a new coronavirus that can be passed from person-to-person and that Wuhan is ground zero of the epidemic. That day, the Wuhan authorities said that four people had died from the virus; the authorities ordered a lockdown of the city three days later. On Jan. 29, the Wuhan authorities reported that there were 129 virus deaths—a suspiciously low figure in considering other information.
– According to reports in overseas Chinese language media, funeral homes in Wuhan are operating their cremation furnaces for 24 hours a day; previously, cremations are carried out only after 12:00 p.m. every day. Funeral homes are also reportedly short of funeral vehicles, personnel, and protective gear.
– According to other Chinese language media interviews and disclosures on social media, a total of 700 corpses from local hospitals were “disposed of” by funeral homes on Jan. 24; it is unclear how many of the “disposed” corpses belonged to victims of the coronavirus.
– According to an account this week by a person claiming to be a medical staff at an undisclosed Wuhan hospital, more than a hundred people die “every day” at their hospital (with the implication that the deaths are related to the coronavirus).
– According to a social media post published this week by a person claiming to be a worker at the Qingshan Funeral Home in Wuhan, “the number of dead bodies our work unit has hauled in the past couple of days has soared.” The person claimed to be “hardly able to carry on” and that the funeral home “does not even give us protective clothing.” The person also noted that “Wuchang Funeral Home and Hankou Funeral Home cannot hold any more corpses.”
– According to the Wuhan Bureau of Civil Affairs website, there are seven funeral homes in the city. In compiling publicly available data made available by the seven funeral homes, those funeral homes operate about 80 furnaces and cremate about 60,000 corpses each year. Hankou Funeral Home, one of the seven funeral homes, has 14 furnaces available, according to Hong Kong news website Initium Media. Hankou Funeral Home claims on its website that it has 30 furnaces, cremates about 20,000 corpses a year, and owns 20 funeral vehicles. If we presume that Hankou has 14 instead of 30 furnaces and carries out cremations for 300 days a year, then the 14 furnaces cremate nearly five corpses a day each. And if we presume that only half of Hankou’s 20-funeral vehicle fleet is in use, then each vehicle carries an average of seven corpses to the funeral house every day.
– In August 2016, Wuhan Evening News published an article about how cremation technicians have created a so-called “five-step combustion method” to shorten the average time of cremation from 50 to 60 minutes to about 45 minutes. Assuming that actual cremation time is double what the cremation technicians claim (90 minutes) and that only half of the 80 furnaces in Wuhan are working (40 furnaces), then the city can “dispose of” 640 corpses a day via cremation. This figure is close to the 700 corpses “disposed of” on Jan. 24, according to the account from media interviews which we wrote above.
– According to publicly available data made available by the seven funeral homes, the funeral homes cremate 60,000 corpses annually on average. After accounting for the average death rate of 200 per day (60,000 corpses divided by 300 days), there has been an increase of at least 440 deaths per day in Wuhan since the CCP officially acknowledged the coronavirus outbreak. That is, the increased death rate over the ten-day period from Jan. 20 to Jan. 29 could be 35.2 times that of the official 170 coronavirus deaths (as of Jan. 29), or 5,984 deaths.
– According to a Jan. 30 paper in British medical journal The Lancet, the paper’s authors examined 99 patients who were infected with the Wuhan coronavirus between Jan. 1 to Jan. 20 and found a mortality rate of 11 percent at the cutoff for the research study (Jan. 25). Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said that the fatality rate of known cases and deaths is around 2 percent. In extrapolating from 5,984 deaths between Jan. 20 to Jan. 29, the actual number of confirmed cases could be between 54,400 (11 percent mortality rate) to 299,200 (2 percent mortality rate).
2. In comparing central government and local government data on the coronavirus, there are obvious signs that one side or all sides are actively partaking in fraudulent behavior.
According to central government data as of Jan. 29, there are 7,711 confirmed cases (59.5 percent from Hubei) and 170 deaths (95.3 percent from Hubei) in China’s 31 provinces, as well as 81,947 people under medical observation (32.5 percent from Hubei). It is striking that while only about 60 percent of confirmed cases in China come from Hubei, over 95 percent of deaths occurred in the province. Because the Wuhan coronavirus is new, there ought not to be such a glaring discrepancy between the mortality rate in Hubei as compared to other provinces. There are several plausible reasons for this phenomenon: Other provinces have better and more medical equipment and treatment than Hubei, leading to vastly lower mortality rates; all provinces aside from Hubei are hiding their actual coronavirus confirmed cases and mortality rate; or the Hubei local government is hiding the actual number of confirmed cases, leading to an extremely high mortality rate.
