Just to preserve the record here:

Many policy experts believe China under-reported her deaths from COVID-19. Many also believe a second wave of deaths in China is underway — but being completely censored this time around.

Even so, to adhere to his cramped views, John assigns only an overall 10-to-one under-reporting factor, to China. [And he assumes Russian deaths out of the equation entirely.]

“…UPDATE: Last time I posted these numbers, I included a global fatality number that assumes China is vastly underreporting its deaths, as most believe. I will do that again: if China is underreporting by a factor of 10–i.e., the true Chinese number is 10 times the one being used by the WHO–then the current global fatality total is 26% of an average flu season, per the WHO…”

I’ve seen several accounts that assume it was five to ten times worse than that. [This is why most economies are largely being shuttered: to save hundreds of thousands of lives.]

But to admit that would ruin John’s errant thesis. [Of course if we persist with strict measures to save lives, and succeed — and thus the ultimate US death total ends below 100,000 — John will claim (wrongly) that he was right and we ruined the economy for nothing. Idiotic argument, that.]

From my perspective, and of equal import, the facts would imply that if we reopen too soon, our June/July second wave of deaths (and they will come, no matter what) may be much worse than John’s rather silly, and thus childish, guesses. That is, with China now feeling its second wave, we are completely blind to just how bad it really is, there. Mr. Xi is stifling the real numbers.

To be clear, I do wish John was right — no one wishes for escalating loss of life totals — but I know from experience (watching Ebola epidemic waves… over a decade) he is… wrong.

And his rush to make money (restart the economy)… will kill many senior citizens — and many healthy younger people.

I dissent.

Pax tecum here at Easter.