Thread by @sumanthraman

The most puzzling aspect of #Covid is its reluctance to infect Chinese since April 2020. Of the 87000 cases China has reported so far 68000+ have been in Hubei province which got it first. Rest of China with a population of 1330 million has reported a total of <19000 cases.Thread

Beijing with population of 21 million has reported 961 cases and 9 deaths. Shanghai with population of 24 million has reported 1447 cases and 7 deaths. Chongqing with a population of 15 million says they hv had 560 cases and 6 deaths.

And Tianjin with 13 million people has reported 304 cases and 3 deaths. So the 4 largest cities of China with a combined population of 73 million have together reported 3272 cases with 25 deaths. Even a city state like Singapore had recorded more deaths (29)

despite their strict control measures and a population of just 6 million. While Hubei province which was hit first in China had a death rate of 6%, the rest of China has a death rate from #COVID19 of 0.64%. Cities in China are crowded/congested &hygiene is far from ideal.

Healthcare facilities outside the big cities are not as good as in Western countries and it appears almost unbelievable that the same mask wearing, hand washing and social distancing that did not fully prevent outbreaks in most other countries has spared the big cities of China.

There is no other large country to my memory that has so totally limited the spread of #Covid to just one province. China may claim 3 Deaths/million population but take out Hubei province and deaths per million population is an incredible 0.092. #Covid_19

To add to the puzzle the Sinopharm vaccine seems to have been in use since May-June though data about it is yet to be put out publicly. When the UAE approved the vaccine followed by other Arab countries there was hardly a word from China. Instead of tomtoming their success

and encouraging more countries to use the vaccine, Beijing has remained suspiciously silent. While they have spoken about their newer Sinovac vaccine there has been very little about the Sinopharm one except a report in November that 1 million Chinese had been vaccinated with it.

To me there appear to be only 2 possibilities.
1. There is some genetic or other factor that makes Chinese less susceptible to Covid.Thailand & Vietnam also having remarkably low rates of infection may point us in this direction. #Covid_19

2.The Chinese have some way of preventing spread of Covid that the rest of the World does not know about.
And isn't it ironical that 2 weeks after the vaccine rollout in the West we hear of a more virulent mutant strain that may potentially render these vaccines less effective?

I am not a conspiracy theorist, far from it. But as a Doctor who believes in Science,things just dont seem to add up. Last week the World has lost over 10000 people each day to Covid. Thats 70000 lives lost in a week. China has lost none.