But I mean, by some account it was spreading false rumour before all the facts were in place. In the report it was identified correctly as a type of coronavirus but also misidentified as SARS coronavirus. SARS and nCoV symptoms and quarantine strategy would be quite different, had that information being widely circulated and the situation dealt with like SARS (eg, not taking into account asymptomatic spreading) then you would also have a bad outcome.

Of course, treating it like SARS in early December is still much better than doing nothing in early December, but the point is misinformation on any level is potentially as deadly as the virus itself. Misinformation can spread over the internet unlike nCoV.