The Dangers of Suppressing Information in an Outbreak

SARS may have exacerbated the kind of ultimate response when people did get a sense of what was going on. Small shocks suppressing information actually is positive because it reduces volatility. But unfortunately at the cost of increasing volatility when the shocks are big, which is exactly when you don't want to increase volatility. So that's another reason why you really want transparency in these kinds of shocks.