'This kind of confusion breeds distrust. You should stick to a standard even if you have caveats,' global health economist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding said.
New cases of a deadly coronavirus running through China surged at the start of February, then they leveled off, then they jumped by more than 19,000 overnight.
But those swings might not have as much to do with the reality on the ground as they do how Chinese authorities define a "confirmed case." The case definition was changed, according to a CNBC translation of the official announcement's Chinese text, so a broader set of patients could receive the same treatment as confirmed cases. WHO officials applauded the decision as a move toward transparency. The change took a few days to show up in China's reported numbers, but when it did, it sent shock waves throughout the globe. China's total cases soared by more than 19,000 — from 51,174 on Feb.
Part of the problem with the Feb. 12 change that sent total cases soaring, Feigl-Ding said, is that there were no dates associated with the cases involved in the spike. Chinese officials said that part of those 19,000 new cases were older cases that had been clinically diagnosed, but not confirmed in a lab. Feigl-Ding said that meddled the outbreak's trajectory.
If healthcare workers across Hubei province don't have the resources or time to properly administer the tests, Huang said it's better to rely on symptoms for official counting so that more people can receive treatment.
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