case as confirmed case to publish. (But I believe you truly don't know it and most posters on this board don't know it). The way China counts is not cheating, it is just culture difference and different goal of testing. China's main goal of testing is to track the spread of the infected, search its connection routes, find its super spreader in order to suppress the epidemic. The goal is not to see who is sick. As a result of this way counting, China has 43K people who are tested positive but also are asymptomatic. These people are not included in the confirmed cases. So, using u.s. standard China's confirmed case should be 80k + 43k = 123k. We're not #1 yet. Obviously NYT reporter just can't wait.