A U.S. media watchdog has rejected a report by Bloomberg that claimed China's COVID-19 statistics were "fake" while citing "secret U.S. intelligence."
FAIR pointed out that by taking a look at other professional reports with coronavirus data, it's easy to tell who's telling the truth.
"Well, you could look at the report from the World Health Organization (2/28/20), which sent a team of international observers to China from February 16–24 as the outbreak was still ongoing, talking to hundreds of Chinese doctors and other frontline health workers in hospitals, clinics and laboratories," FAIR wrote.
The fact that China's anti-pandemic measures are effective is supported by solid evidence.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian doctor and former WHO assistant director-general who co-led the team, has said:"[what] we have to do is look very carefully at different sources of information to say with confidence that this is actually declining. And when you get out into the field, there is a lot of compelling data and observations to support this decline."
"I know people look at the numbers and ask what is really happening. And we do as well. I work for the WHO. Yes. But I have 12 people with me who work for the best institutions, researches and public health institutions around the world. They want to be convinced. And very rapidly, multiple sources of data pointed to the same thing: This is falling and it's falling because of the actions that are being taken."
FAIR also provided other reliable sources to back up its view that Bloomberg's report is groundless and irresponsible.
"Or you could look to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which has published many reports on the Chinese outbreak of Covid-19, including 'Characteristics of and Important Lessons From the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Outbreak in China' (2/24/20), which noted that 'the Chinese government has improved its epidemic response capacity' since the 2002–03 SARS outbreak," FAIR added.
In fact, simple logic can discredit such conspiracy theories.
"The reality is that it's very hard to hide an epidemic. Stopping a virus requires identifying and isolating cases of infection, and if you pretend to have done so when you really haven't, the uncaught cases will grow exponentially. Maintaining a hidden set of real statistics and another set for show would require the secret collusion of China's 2 million doctors and 3 million nurses," noted FAIR.
FAIR has called on news outlets to serve the public by quoting health experts on the reliability of health statistics, rather than politicians.
