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Notes -
China absolutely can lie that much. And with such a large population, it's relatively easier to obfuscate deaths. And the west seemed motivated to INFLATE covid numbers, as well. Lots of deaths with COVID, rather than from COVID. Actual COVID deaths are probably somewhere inbetween.
And you might talk of excess deaths, but consider this; China has a lot more deaths of young people from accidents and such. When you lockdown, you have far fewer young people getting killed by machinery, run over in the street, things like that. China also isn't grappling with a drug epidemic. And the average person has a healthy BMI, even the elderly. China would have weathered COVID well regardless of how it handled things. By locking down and making it look like that drove their success, the west was doomed to follow. Telling overweight westerners to stay at home and do nothing was probably the biggest danger to their health.
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