> How the WHO can report these numbers with a straight face is beyond me.

I think the WHO understands that they've already lost any credibility they once had and have strategically pivoted to being more of a political organization.

“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.”

How you are able to have such cognitive dissonance in believing that China is an authoritarian government that locks down entire buildings because someone tested positive for a mutation of a cold virus but also not believe they have had few covid cases is beyond me.

You can try entering Beijing from the outside and see how difficult it is.

I found two interesting points after comparing numbers from WTO and China CDC (https://2019ncov.chinacdc.cn/2019-nCoV/):

1. The death toll is the same, but the number of confirmed cases reported by China CDC is much smaller than WTO (380k vs 710k). I guess people caught covid with no symptoms are excluded by China CDC.

2. After subtracting death toll in Hong Kong and Taiwan, there're only 4.6k deaths in China mainland since 2020.

The WHO can only report what the health authorities of each country report to them.