About as much as any other country; that is, quite a bit, because there’s little obvious gain from downplaying it, and if it came out that they were downplaying it that could cause internal anxiety and strife. Like, no-one is handing out large cash prizes for “least covid-y country”; there just aren’t great incentives to lie.
And again, China has taken extremely aggressive, and very disruptive and expensive, measures on covid where it has shown up, some of which people wouldn’t put up with in democratic countries. It also has a respectable though not world-beating vaccination rate (a little higher than the US and the EU average), and encountered Delta pretty late (in the last week or so). You’d expect good performance based on this.
That said, it may not last; it does look like the Delta cat is now out of the bag, and experience elsewhere has been that suppression measures that are good enough for Alpha aren’t good enough for Delta (see Australia).
I wouldn’t in general trust China’s government much, but the incentives to lie here just don’t seem like they’re there, and their approach to managing covid seems like it should work, on paper.
> [...] there’s little obvious gain from downplaying it
Of course there is. It is to display competency for domestic audiences. A lot of autocracies didn't have a problem with COVID officially. I agree that it is a bad measurement though.
And again, China has taken extremely aggressive, and very disruptive and expensive, measures on covid where it has shown up, some of which people wouldn’t put up with in democratic countries. It also has a respectable though not world-beating vaccination rate (a little higher than the US and the EU average), and encountered Delta pretty late (in the last week or so). You’d expect good performance based on this.
That said, it may not last; it does look like the Delta cat is now out of the bag, and experience elsewhere has been that suppression measures that are good enough for Alpha aren’t good enough for Delta (see Australia).
I wouldn’t in general trust China’s government much, but the incentives to lie here just don’t seem like they’re there, and their approach to managing covid seems like it should work, on paper.