Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19/Draft: Alleged undercounting of cases and deaths (v1)

Papers from academic journals and publishers such as Science, Nature, The Lancet, and Karger Publishers have regarded China's measures to domestically contain COVID-19 to be effective. A study in March published in Science Magazine concluded that the Wuhan travel ban and national emergency response may have prevented more than 700,000 COVID-19 cases outside the city. As of 31 December 2021, official statistics showed 102,083 cumulative confirmed cases and 4,636 cumulative deaths in mainland China. This corresponds to 3.2 deaths per million inhabitants.

A study published in The BMJ found that 4573 additional pneumonia deaths occurred in Wuhan from January to March 2020, compared with the same period in 2019. Outside of Wuhan, no measurable increase in pneumonia deaths was observed. Though there were confirmed COVID-19 deaths outside of Wuhan, the authors speculated that lockdowns suppressed influenza transmission sufficiently to offset these deaths.

A survey of seroprevalence conducted in April 2020 found that 4.4% of people in Wuhan had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, indicating that they had been infected. Seroprevalence fell with distance from Wuhan, indicating that the initial outbreak had been largely contained to the city. Elsewhere in Hubei province, 0.4% of people had antibodies, while outside of Hubei province, less than 0.1% of people had antibodies. These results imply that in the first wave, approximately 500,000 people were infected in Wuhan, 210,000 people were infected in the rest of Hubei province, and 120,000 people were infected outside of Hubei province. A study conducted from March to April 2020 found that between 3.2% and 3.8% of people in Wuhan tested had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. A study of Hong Kong residents evacuated from Hubei province in March 2020 found that 4% of them had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.

According to British epidemiologist Ben Cowling, "due to the compulsory testing when there is an outbreak, the case numbers in China tend to include a lot of mild or asymptomatic infections that would never have been identified in other parts of the world", which explains China's relatively low case fatality rate. Peer-reviewed antibody studies have found a seropositivity rate of around 3.8% for Wuhan inhabitants.

In May 2020, a commentary article in the journal Global Public Health examined the possibility of inaccurate death counts due to alleged political censorship, but concluded that due to the lack of any known deaths of Hong Kong or Taiwan residents in Mainland China, which would be newsworthy, the discrepancy between the official and true death toll is likely not particularly large.

Despite poor sanitary conditions and close quarters, 0 cases have been attributed to re-education camps in Xinjiang province. US and UK politicians, scientists, and intelligence officials have expressed doubts about the accuracy of case counts provided by the Chinese government.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reported on 24 March 2020 that the spread of domestically transmitted epidemic has essentially stopped and the outbreak has been controlled in China. On 17 April 2020 the Wuhan government revised the number of COVID-19 deaths, accounting for previously unreported deaths that occurred at home. This resulted in a net increase of 1,290 reported deaths in the city, bringing the overall total to 3,869 for Hubei province.