Considering China to be a first world nation is a mistake

 Why?

It's true that 300 million Chinese are middle Class or Above. This much is true.

HOWEVER, it is also true that 1 billion Chinese are NOT middle Class or above and that 300 million of these for sure cannot read or write, do not have passports or IDs have no birth certificates and could never legally travel to another country unless they are leaving and never coming back to China like going to India or Nepal or somewhere like that if they were Tibetans, for example.

So, the first mistake the world makes about China is thinking of it as a first world nation. It's true that more people in China speak English than in the entire rest of the World. It's true that 300 million are like the middle class of the U.S. and Canada and Europe but it's not true that medical care or birth certificates or education is universal. This is what people need to understand about China when they talk about coronavirus.

IT's quite feasible therefore that coronavirus has been hitting the 1 million relatively poor people in China for 2 or more years or longer and the 300 million Communists didn't notice this was happening or they prevented the middle Class and upper classes from finding out about this just like most Chinese might not know that 250 to 300 million Chinese also have Tuberculosis and some of the strains are incurable too. But, the Chinese government doesn't let people like this travel outside their country either usually. So, most people around the world don't know about any of this usually either.