More from AEI: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/estimating-the-true-number-of-chinas-covid-19-cases/
Key Points
China’s COVID-19 figures are not arithmetically sensible. The Communist Party has deliberately made estimation difficult, but, outside of Wuhan city and Hubei province, cases are low by a factor of 100 or more.
In late January, Chinese media provided information about migrant outflow from Wuhan before quarantine. Using a lower number than theirs, then conservative figures for migrants’ infection rate and time in circulation before national lockdown, generates an estimate of 2.9 million cases.
This is partly due to China’s huge population. That population can also hide COVID-19 among tens of millions of respiratory illnesses. Along with harshly enforced censorship, the population can hide tens of thousands of deaths.