[ContemptofCourt]

A catastrophe is when a quarter of the city is lying dead on the streets. Taking precautions to stop the spread of a virus is hardly a catastrophe.

Please look at a map of China....it is a big place, and I have a feeling that peasants in the Xinjiang or Yunnan Province don't even know where Bejing is, let alone give a crap about the people there.

[FreepForever]

Economic and political impact are more important than body counts. When daily lives, productions and commercial activities are affected, it can bring down governments.

[FreepForever]

The epidemic is even more dangerous in rural China where the medical infrastructure is very primitive. In remote towns and villages, there's no hospitals barring dismal clinics. Peasants can get sick, take some herbal medication, infect others, die at home and buried without the government knowing it. Therefore, even when all health officials come clean with the number of cases, the present data does not necessarily reflect the magnitude of the situation in all of China.