[standardUser]

I agree with the gist of what you're saying, but I think you're missing a key part of the picture. Any jurisdiction can lie if they want, for a while, but at a certain point this is an actual disease that causes actual illness and death. You can't hide hundreds or thousands of people dying from respiratory failure and you can't hide overwhelmed hospitals or auxiliary medical tents. Not for very long at least.

In the case of Japan, they do not appear to have high enough transmission rates to cause serious problems. I don't know if they are lying about any given fact or figure. But they are not covering up a widespread COVID-19 outbreak because we know what that type of outbreak looks like. It looks like Italy.