It started in China, notoriously bad at admitting anything negative about the country.
Many Asian countries are equally bad at admitting possible failure on their part. All countries should use standard reporting, testing and detection systems. Sadly that won’t happen because globalism does not trump common sense yet. Russia and N Korea have been mentioned already, but what about India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos etc?
Many of these places don’t have flushing toilets available to the general public yet. What are the chances of them having a bullet proof reporting and testing system, or even admitting that some of their citizens, have been infected.
The developing world is often growing up in secretive cultures.
I live in Indonesia and the open reporting of any cases is limited to those that cannot easily be denied, or covered up.
MSM are still guilty of overplaying it, and they have initiated shock horror stories to create bad news, simply because sensational bad news sells better.