All that is sound, except that there are "pro-China" arguments you missed and they are very strong.
The biggest is that actually nowhere in south east Asia (except Hubei) had big COVID outbreaks up until Omicron. Comparing China to the USA will make China look dishonest because the USA has unusually high numbers, but you could do the same for e.g. Taiwan or Japan. Look at OWID data to see this.
In fact, your argument can be turned around on itself. Why does the USA report such anomalously high rates? Well, we know that the US authorities incentivized the medical system to lie about COVID with direct cash payments amongst many other forms of manipulation. So you could argue the data actually suggests the USA is lying, not all Asian countries.
There's also another possibility that doesn't require anyone to be lying - there could be genetic, background health levels or pre-exposure factors at work. An implied assumption of your arguments above is that SARS-CoV-2 affects everyone the same everywhere, but we know that's not true.
I am totally down with the notion that SE Asia has a higher resistance to to the sorts of upper respiratory infections we are talking about. Between just getting exposed more to the SARs families and name-an-animal flus that go through the populaces, and having a lot more practice dealing with those sorts of things via masking and such, I am willing to bet that the Chinese, Taiwanese, Koreans, Japanese, etc. all are going to weather any random storm better than the US or other regions that don't see that kind of stuff so much. I don't, however, think the effect is going to be so large that 5,700 out of 1,400,000,000 is a reasonable number of deaths over two years. If that was the number of people out of 1.4 billion that died slipping in the bathtub every two years, ok, I'd accept that.
When comparing to other Asian countries China still looks REALLY out of kilter. Note that the map I posted and linked to above from the WHO is showing TOTAL deaths over two years, not the RATE of deaths. Looking at Japan (https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/jp) they have 19,324 deaths for the same time period and a population of just under 126 million. If you look at it as a rate, China reports a death rate of 4 in 1,000,000 whereas Japan reports 150 in 1,000,000. That isn't even kind of close, it is off by two orders of magnitude. That's just bonkers.
The WHO doesn't think Taiwan is a country, of course, but if we look at South Korea they show 6,886 deaths in a population of 51 million. Death rate ~135 in 1,000,000. Very close to Japan, very different from China.
So, yea, I am inclined to believe the USA is inflating the deaths. I am ok with Japan and S. Korea's numbers, because barring anything else they are at least consistent. Then you have China... 4 per one million people over two years. I mean, that number is so low one wonders why they even bothered doing anything about it. In the USA, that would be something that kills about 500 people a year, so somewhat less than the number of people killed by hands and feet (presumably attached to an attacker at the time, but the alternative is also amusing to think about) and somewhat more than "blunt object." It is about 2.5 times the rate of deer killing people, but way less than the tens of thousands that died of or with flu prior to COVID. (It is actually hard to find things in the 400-700 people per year range; larger numbers get more press, and small numbers tend to be things people are scared of like snakes and sharks, but that middle range is oddly blasé.)
All that is sound, except that there are "pro-China" arguments you missed and they are very strong.
The biggest is that actually nowhere in south east Asia (except Hubei) had big COVID outbreaks up until Omicron. Comparing China to the USA will make China look dishonest because the USA has unusually high numbers, but you could do the same for e.g. Taiwan or Japan. Look at OWID data to see this.
In fact, your argument can be turned around on itself. Why does the USA report such anomalously high rates? Well, we know that the US authorities incentivized the medical system to lie about COVID with direct cash payments amongst many other forms of manipulation. So you could argue the data actually suggests the USA is lying, not all Asian countries.
There's also another possibility that doesn't require anyone to be lying - there could be genetic, background health levels or pre-exposure factors at work. An implied assumption of your arguments above is that SARS-CoV-2 affects everyone the same everywhere, but we know that's not true.
Those are good points, but not so strong I think.
I am totally down with the notion that SE Asia has a higher resistance to to the sorts of upper respiratory infections we are talking about. Between just getting exposed more to the SARs families and name-an-animal flus that go through the populaces, and having a lot more practice dealing with those sorts of things via masking and such, I am willing to bet that the Chinese, Taiwanese, Koreans, Japanese, etc. all are going to weather any random storm better than the US or other regions that don't see that kind of stuff so much. I don't, however, think the effect is going to be so large that 5,700 out of 1,400,000,000 is a reasonable number of deaths over two years. If that was the number of people out of 1.4 billion that died slipping in the bathtub every two years, ok, I'd accept that.
When comparing to other Asian countries China still looks REALLY out of kilter. Note that the map I posted and linked to above from the WHO is showing TOTAL deaths over two years, not the RATE of deaths. Looking at Japan (https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/jp) they have 19,324 deaths for the same time period and a population of just under 126 million. If you look at it as a rate, China reports a death rate of 4 in 1,000,000 whereas Japan reports 150 in 1,000,000. That isn't even kind of close, it is off by two orders of magnitude. That's just bonkers.
The WHO doesn't think Taiwan is a country, of course, but if we look at South Korea they show 6,886 deaths in a population of 51 million. Death rate ~135 in 1,000,000. Very close to Japan, very different from China.
So, yea, I am inclined to believe the USA is inflating the deaths. I am ok with Japan and S. Korea's numbers, because barring anything else they are at least consistent. Then you have China... 4 per one million people over two years. I mean, that number is so low one wonders why they even bothered doing anything about it. In the USA, that would be something that kills about 500 people a year, so somewhat less than the number of people killed by hands and feet (presumably attached to an attacker at the time, but the alternative is also amusing to think about) and somewhat more than "blunt object." It is about 2.5 times the rate of deer killing people, but way less than the tens of thousands that died of or with flu prior to COVID. (It is actually hard to find things in the 400-700 people per year range; larger numbers get more press, and small numbers tend to be things people are scared of like snakes and sharks, but that middle range is oddly blasé.)
Test
Hmmm... seems like Substack double posted your comment. I will pull one, if you'd like.
Yes please do, Substack was broken earlier. And this thread.