The first photo shows hundreds of ballot boxes stacked on the floor of a funeral home. A second photo, of the inhabitants, masks on their noses, who wait until six o'clock in front of the crematoriums. A few days before the traditional Day of the Dead, families were allowed to recover the ashes of their missing relatives. As soon as they were published in an investigative magazine based in Beijing, these images sowed doubt, especially since residents of Wuhan in the Chinese province of Hubei, the cradle of the Covid-19 epidemic, do not believe in official death figures. Some people talk about crematoriums running at full speed for days. Others have published their calculations on social networks and estimate the number of ballot boxes returned to 42,000.
Therefore, the question arises: is the death toll of the coronavirus in China really 3,295 dead, as claimed by the authorities or well beyond? "This number is totally improbable! Exclaims Jean-Michel Constantin, deputy secretary general of the French Society of Anesthesia and Resuscitation.
"A well known statistical technique"
"The figures cannot exactly represent the reality on the ground," rebounds Carine Milcent, a researcher at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), specialist in the Chinese health system. Already, because they only take into account deaths in hospital, after a test, excluding all those that occurred at home. But also, because the death of an already sick person is attributed to his pathology and not to Covid-19. Finally, and last but not least, "we are in China, in an authoritarian regime", recalls this scientist who lived there ten years.
Minimizing numbers is, she says, "a well-known statistical technique. We count things, but in a different way. It is a way of reassuring inside and outside the country. "Faced with the world, China intends to prove" its total control of the epidemic. And show that it is a great power, capable, for example, of building hospitals in ten days even when its factories are closed. "
If the scientific community welcomes a “much better” communication from the Chinese authorities on this new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, than on its cousin SARS, in 2003, the fact remains that it took three weeks to recognize that the virus was transmitted from man to man. Should we go so far as to accuse China of lying? "I wouldn't say that. The perception of what reality is is not the same view from here or there ”, nuance Carine Milcent. Infectious disease professor Elisabeth Bouvet is more adamant: “I trust their data. Talking about lies only fuels an unnecessary controversy. We have better things to do at the moment. "
"Did they lie? I can not say it "
However, the question does indeed stir up white coats in France. "It is a significant possibility, obviously we are wondering," says infectiologist Gilles Pialoux, 3300 dead, is this communication or the result of extremely effective confinement? The outbreak of cases across Europe is only fueling suspicion.
"Did they lie? I can not say it. But what is very surprising is to see that there are three times less deaths in China than in Italy ” (Editor's note: who has exceeded 10,000 dead) , observes Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, head of the service infectiology at Mondor hospital, in Créteil (Val-de-Marne). "It is possible that this discrepancy in the figures can be explained by genetic differences between the Caucasian and Asian populations," he continues. The latter could be less infected or have less serious forms. They are also more in contact with, and perhaps better protected from, coronaviruses. "
Discuss on the number of cases, a simple quarrel of experts? Certainly not. They are the starting point of our replication strategy, here in France. "We based ourselves on Chinese data," recalls Jean-Stéphane Dhersin, specialist in epidemic modeling. Underestimates in Asia, consequences in France: the butterfly effect.
Newsletter - The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
“The fact of not having a real vision of the situation in China, this probably delayed the implementation of the first measures in France. Our ability to react has been slowed down by the information given to us and our way of digesting it, ”analyzes researcher Carine Milcent.
Difficult to say, if in the light of this, the hospitals could have better anticipated. One thing is certain, they are facing an epidemic wave of unprecedented magnitude. "No generation of doctors has known this," blows a resuscitator from Strasbourg. He is convinced that the Chinese government "lied to us". For him, no doubt, once the crisis is over, there will be accounts to be made.