Russia, China, and Iran Are All Screwed

[George K]

Interesting read:

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/why-russia-china-and-iran-are-all-screwed-by-the-pandemic/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

Some highlights:

Russia has witnessed a shocking rise in the number of COVID-19 cases — from around 7,000 or so per day to more than 25,000 per day — and that’s with a near-open recognition that the country’s official statistics are drastically understating the real numbers. The country’s coronavirus information center says the country has suffered 141,501 deaths — while the country’s excess-fatality count since the start of the pandemic is closer to 475,000.

According to the official government statistics, Russia suffered a random and unexplained surge of deaths from pneumonia, diabetes, nervous-system diseases, and old-age deaths in 2020 that had nothing to do with COVID-19. And earlier this year, the Rossat, or Federal Statistics Service, stopped giving monthly updates on death statistics. In the official statistics, Russia’s death count ranks a distant sixth worldwide, with 22 percent of the United States’ more reliable 622,000. The excess-death number would put Russia at 76 percent of the U.S. death count.

Meanwhile, over in China, the government insists that since the start of the pandemic in Wuhan*, the country of more than a billion people has suffered fewer cases of infection than Ghana, Finland, Montenegro, Namibia, Uzbekistan, or Estonia. China also insists that its deaths from COVID-19 are fewer than those of Costa Rica, Azerbaijan, Ireland, and North Macedonia. In fact, China contends that its 4,636 deaths are less than half the death total in the borough of Queens, N.Y.

Our World in Data does not include China in its statistics. The New York Times, in an extensive review comparing excess deaths to official statistics, did not include China. The Economist, in a similar extensive review comparing excess deaths to official statistics, did not include China.

There is a widespread recognition that China’s official statistics are nonsense; on April 14, 2020, the country “adjusted” the figures to account for more than 1,200 deaths, and the chart has remained flat since...

Radio Free Asia reported that “data released by the civil affairs department in the central province of Hubei, where the coronavirus pandemic first emerged in December 2019, showed that around 150,000 names had ‘disappeared’ from the list of recipients in the first three months of 2020, as COVID-19 tore through the provincial capital Wuhan and surrounding areas, sparking a provincial lockdown.” This suggests that, as in Russia, at minimum, tens of thousands of COVID-19 deaths are being attributed to other causes.

Iran’s official death toll, as of this morning, is about 85,000. For what it’s worth, opposition groups contend that the death toll is more than 325,000. To the extent that Iran’s official figures can be believed, they point to another bad wave coming, the country’s fifth. The country reported about 16,000 new cases Tuesday, more than 17,000 new cases Wednesday, and more than 23,000 new cases Thursday.

The regime barely hides the fact that it has banned an accurate record keeping of the pandemic’s effects; it just sentenced a journalist to three months in prison for “spreading lies, disturbing public opinion, providing a negative portrait of the clergy, and publishing the statistics of the number of positive Coronavirus cases.” (Notice that last charge.)

Our World in Data does not include Iran in its statistics.

[Jolly]

If anything good comes out of this mess, I hope it is the realization by the rest of the world, that China does not have their best interests at heart.

[Copper]

I assume those governments shoot you if you don't wear a mask.

Proof that masks save lives.

I'm pretty sure that some in our government would like to do this.

[Catseye3]

@jolly said in Russia, China, and Iran Are All Screwed:

the realization by the rest of the world, that China does not have their best interests at heart.

In the first place, why should it?

In the second place, what makes you think the rest of the world is not already aware of this?

[Jolly]

Actions speak louder than words. Have you not followed the actions of the Chinese and their growing influence across the globe?

[Catseye3]

Sorry, not responsive.

[Mik]

It’s an important realization. There’s no free lunch.

[Horace]

Western progressivism is loathe to find enemies outside their own borders. It sniffs of xenophobia. Plenty of enemies within the society they come from - the other political side. Those people who, culturally, are more similar to them than any other people on the planet. They are the evil ones. There's no need for other forcers of evil to message against.

[Loki]

@horace said in Russia, China, and Iran Are All Screwed:

Western progressivism is loathe to find enemies outside their own borders. It sniffs of xenophobia. Plenty of enemies within the society they come from - the other political side. Those people who, culturally, are more similar to them than any other people on the planet. They are the evil ones. There's no need for other forcers of evil to message against.

So true. How you can be woke and be indifferent to the horrors that go on in other countries is still very very confusing to me.