How come European Union countries, South Korea and Taiwan weren't hiding the issue then? They were unaware of the scale for a while, but even Italy did not try for a minute to hide it. Hiding or denying an epidemic is really something that only dictatorships do.
I think the degree to which countries hide their numbers matches the degree to which they're authoritarian (or simply corrupt). North Korea sets the bar, with "zero" cases. Russia has suspiciously low numbers. Japan, surprisingly, is not doing well in this area. I think Japan early on was hell-bent on having their olympics happen regardless of the consequences, and their people are going to suffer for it.
I'm in Canada and we have surprisngly few cases where we are, relative to the population size (Edmonton). We've had snow and a cold snap, which is definitely keeping people inside.
I don't doubt that Russia is downplaying their cases, but I can absolutely believe that the cold is making people self-isolate, and thus keep infection down.
They already knew what it was. When the outbreak started, no one knew what a coronavirus was or how to treat it. By the time, other countries started getting hit, everyone knew what it was and how to test for it.
