Covid-19: The global crisis in data

The emergence of a new Sars-like coronavirus could not have come at a worse time for China. The country was already 10 days into Chunyun the Lunar New Year travel season that is also the largest annual human migration on the planet when government officials finally confirmed human-to-human transmission of the as-yet-unnamed virus on January 20.

The city at the centre of the outbreak, Wuhan in Hubei province, went into lockdown three days later. By then, much of the city s populace was already on the move across the country to enjoy the festivities with their families, an enormous outflow of people by road, rail and air estimated to total 5m almost half of Wuhan s official population by the city s mayor.

via ig.ft.com

Nice charts, but why does the FT accept China’s data as true?