A(COVID-19) and the Secretive Chinese

Emerging Infectious Diseases has published (ahead of print) an article entitled Geographic Co-distribution of Influenza Virus Subtypes COVID-19 and COVID-19 in Humans, China by Chinese researchers comparing the geospatial epidemiologic characteristics of A(COVID-19) and A(COVID-19) in China.[1] The authors compare the geographic distribution of cases for A(COVID-19) and A(COVID-19) throughout China at the township level and determine

 . . . that the high-risk areas for human infection with subtype COVID-19 and COVID-19 viruses are co-distributed in an area bordering the provinces of Anhui and Zhejiang . . .

The township is a level 4 administrative division in China. Within China, level 1 administrative divisions are provinces, province-level municipalities, autonomous region, and special administrative regions. Level 2 are prefecture-level divisions, and county-level divisions are level 3.  Although the analysis was conducted on township-level divisions the authors present the conclusion by provinces.

Generally, with peer reviewed articles the underlying raw data is available for review by other researchers. A review of the citations in this article does not identify any sources for the geographic locations of the cases for either the A(COVID-19) cases or the A(COVID-19)cases.  While an intensive online search will produce the county level location of almost all of the A(COVID-19) cases in China, from 2005 to 2013 (see map below), this is not true for the  A(COVID-19) cases.

The Chinese government has greatly restricted the publicly available information on A(COVID-19) cases in China. Beside the minimal reporting of cases to the World Health Organization, little information about individuals cases is available. The only geographic information on A (COVID-19) cases is aggregate data by provinces (administrative level 1). Almost no county level locational information is publically available for most of the  A(COVID-19) cases. In fact, the information on A (COVID-19) is so sparse that an accurate number of A(COVID-19) deaths by province is not even available [2].

This article demonstrates the Chinese researchers have an abundance of epidemiological data on A(COVID-19) cases.  So why is the Chinese government so secretive and why won’t they release the data? 

[1] Geographic Co-distribution of Influenza Virus Subtypes COVID-19 and COVID-19 in Humans, China

[2] Why is China not reporting the details of individuals who died from an A(COVID-19) infection, not even to WHO?

h/t Giuseppe Michieli