How China’s Incompetence Endangered the World

Are China’s official reports, including claims that its control efforts are succeeding and the epidemic will soon peak, credible? Omens look bad. Once praised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and scientists worldwide for its quick, transparent response to the newly named COVID-19, China now faces international vilification and potential domestic unrest as it blunders through continued cover-ups, lies, and repression that have already failed to stop the virus and may well be fanning the flames of its spread.

Since the epidemic came to the world’s attention in early January it has been marked by startling moments when China’s health authorities announced dramatic surges in apparent cases of the disease, none more surprising than the sudden Feb. 12 adjustment that saw case numbers in Hubei province swell by 14,840 in a single day, pushing the national total to 59,804 cases. The adjustment, according to government officials, was due to a widening definition of the disease for just one place, Hubei Province, while authorities continue to limit their COVID-19 case descriptions elsewhere in China by a prior approach, counting smaller numbers.