China’s response time has been much faster than during the Sars outbreak 17 years ago, but most close observers of the Chinese Communist party say full transparency is never its first instinct and that under the leadership of Xi Jinping, information control has grown ever tighter. Challenged on the silencing of doctors and scientists in early January, a key government adviser, Prof Li Lanjuan, told us: “To announce its contagiousness, if it is not yet confirmed, would cause public panic. Therefore we must be responsible to the public, and ascertain the facts first.”