That certainly was true when SARS broke out in 2002.
I believe this time round that the China government has actually been praised for declaring an alert and notifying the WHO as soon as they discovered the problem less than a month ago.
As for actual numbers, who actually know until the situation is properly quantified - those spreading the rumours have no idea how big China is, and the small the world is these days!
A tourist in intensive care and in isolation for a month supposedly suffering from the coronavirus in Thailand has just been found to have the flu!
Does this kind of action suggest a government attempting a cover-up?
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soci...esidents-wuhan
Only in China would it be possible to lock down a city of 14m (yes, 14 million) people (during their most important festive period) to stop the spread of the disease!