Let's be blunt: much of the lockdown madness that destroyed the economies, politics, and culture of the free world was based on policymakers believing China's lies that it wiped out the coronavirus overnight through the magic of authoritarianism.
We're just now confirming - as if any rational observer needed elaborate confirmation - that the true number of "cases" in China was vastly higher than what the Communist government reported to the outside world. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html
And even the higher numbers in China we're learning about now are vastly lower than the number of "cases" and "Covid deaths" that would be logged if China counted them using the same metrics as neurotic Western governments and media.
China, and other authoritarian regimes, would never count "cases" using broad metrics that make it seem WORSE than it really is, unlike Western countries and media that routinely shift metrics to make things look as bad as possible to gain political advantage or sell hysteria.
But because international organizations and the media doggedly insisted on treating Chinese data as valid, eventually all skepticism from their reports, they bought into the illusion of the Lockdown Miracle Cure and pushed that illusion onto policymakers.
The real Chinese "secret" is to just lie about how many coronavirus cases you have. Count them with the tightest possible metrics, don't count everyone who tests positive after dying for other reasons as a "Covid death," don't conflate positive test results with infections, etc.
But our political class bought into the lockdown illusion - and let's face it, they really, really WANTED to believe, because the illusion gave them unprecedented power and helped them achieve their electoral goals. Their political agenda dovetailed with the CCP's.
So now we have the Lockdown Forever crowd staring in slack-jawed amazement as the coronavirus "surges" in places that did everything "right" and giving awards to murderous halfwits like Andrew Cuomo to cover the utter failure of the beliefs the CCP cultivated in them. /end