Coronavirus severity could be massively understated -- Social media platforms control the flow of information at ground zero.

Weibo is one of the largest platforms in the world and yet it's primary user base is China and other smaller Chinese speaking nations around it, like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia etc.

Since the outbreak of Coronavirus, Weibo has been the primary source of up to date official news, but also of more granular bits of news regarding the virus. What would have served as an excellent crowd sourced information platform for virus incidents across China, has quickly turned into a debate (again) about government censorship.

First, the spread of the initial discovery of the virus was blocked on any social media platform in China, most importantly Weibo. Although there were reports of some yet to be discovered virus possibly crossing the animal-human barrier, these reports were quickly censored in an attempt to not create public panic or hysteria.

Secondly, after the announcement to the general public about the virus, there have been many posts on weibo by regular users mostly in Wuhan, Hubei, who have told their stories about how they are battling the virus. In-fact, this has been particularly useful to get an unabated wholesome view of the situation which would otherwise be moderated by the Chinese government.

Sadly, even posts where people have asked for help or are reporting dire circumstances are being censored and I suspect this has a lot to do with the general control of information regarding the severity of the virus.

Up until now, it has been strangely uncanny how the government has reported figures which point to nCoV being a mildly fatal disease, one that is no more lethal than common flu, and yet, the reactions and measures taken do not reflect the reported threat of the disease.

Some countries have reacted heavy handily in response to the outbreak and have closed off borders to Chinese nationals entirely. Given the statistics reported by the Chinese government, there should be no reason to act beyond the guidelines of WHO but that is clearly not the case right now.

This all leads me to think that there is something the powers that be know, that we don't know, that the public doesn't know, about the severity of the virus and that is why the measures taken are not congruent or proportional to the threat reported. ie. the threat is actually much larger and more severe than the media want you to think.

As of right now, the authorities in China have yet to publish concrete guidelines on when the country can go back to business. As of right now, the holidays have been extended for a couple extra days, and those who have left their own city who will be coming back will need to self impose a quarantine for now at least 20 days.

It is sad that despite being a tool to empower the masses, Weibo has been abused and controlled by the government to help further their own agenda. Very much at the cost of potentially thousands of lives of people who's pleas on the platform will forever be silenced and all for the sake of face and maintaining calm during a precipitous threat to a nations well being.