25,000 deaths in NYC
29 in Shanghai
Thoughts?
Many, but they won't be the pithy soundbites that work on message boards. So, attempt to nutshell:
Data quality is uncertain, just as it is here, on morbidity. What Whiskey said about authoritarian regimes and admission of error.
Multiple strains of coronavirus may have been endemic in China for millennia, so low death rates may partially reflect much greater general immunity even to a novel strain.
Totalitarian society does have its pluses. Getting full cooperation on strict rules of conduct and travel is one of them.
Spanish Flu death rates were also extremely low in China, in 1918-1919.