Indeed - an Austrian ski resort is under investigation for deliberately hiding the extent of the infection as recently as February.
Its human nature.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/24/criminal-investi...
To expand on my own comment: when a private business (a ski resort, for example) decides to cover up the outbreak of a disease in a more-free country like Taiwan or the U.S., there are ways for the rest of society to route around this. When it's the government engaging in this cover-up, especially an authoritarian government with near-total information control, it's much harder to route around that kind of information suppression.
Ischgl isn't a private business: its a municipality* and the reports suggest that the cover-up included the entire valley: Galtür, Mathon, Kappl, See, etc.
* Something that would have taken you < 5 seconds to confirm for yourself.
Hence this is the government, i.e. similar (but yes, not identical) to a regional or national state authority in your example.
So,
1. to reinforce you point: 'cover-ups are prevalent in authoritarian states'. Agreed
2. and to re-make my point: '… apparently also in stable, affluent, western democracies where information flows like wine'.
It would appear that your attachment to your hypothesis that authoritarian states get away with this kind of corruption because of their control over information is preventing you from assimilating new information that this kind of corruption can happen just as easily in free democratic states.
Which should worry you, if you do indeed live in such a state and are hoping that information freedom and democracy is enough to protect you and yours.
>if you do indeed live in such a state and are hoping that information freedom and democracy is enough to protect you and yours.
Never said that. I do think information freedom is preferable to the alternative.