within China despite government attempts to prevent it. Given how much internal dissent has been created by the Coronavirus, it would hard for the government to keep it from leaking if the number of deaths were really an order of magnitude higher, unless most of those deaths are occurring outside of population centers. So many people in China have connections to the outside world, whether it be relatives or business connections abroad, that if things got really out of whack, it would leak out. I don't believe China's numbers are accurate, but I would be surprised if the inaccuracy was more than an order of magnitude.

For what it's worth, none of my friends or relatives in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shengzhen, or Hong Kong personally know anyone who has gotten the virus, though some do have second-degree connections that got infected. One of my former colleagues in Shanghai asked me if I needed him to forward me some facemasks, because there's apparently a glut in Shanghai. My former colleague from Wuhan has a few people he knows there were infected, though no relatives were infected. He does know of a couple third- or fourth-degree connections that died, but apparently they were in the vulnerable class (so unfortunate, but not surprising).