Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times was one of the journalists that reported on China 's censorship of independent oversight during the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic , noting that this had led to the senior officials receiving wrong information about the outbreak .
This has been attributed to the censorship institutional structure of the country 's press and Internet , with Jude Blanchette of the Center for Strategic and International Studies quoted stating `` under Xi Jinping , the inclination to suppress has become endemic and , in this case , contributed to a prolonged period of inaction that allowed the virus to spread '' .
2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in mainland China