Russia's handling of the Irkutsk incident follows a historical pattern of state cover-ups

From the articleRussia’s Silence on Possible Plague Outbreak Stokes Fears of a Cover-UpAlso in Moscow's Secrecy About Suspected Plague Case Follows a Pattern From the Soviet Era, How Moscow’s secrecy about a suspected plague case follows a Soviet-era pattern, ‘Not great, not terrible’: Why nobody trusts Russia to tell the truth about plague