Is China getting better at handling epidemics?

China’s mounting toll of bird flu cases just happens to fall on the 10th anniversary of the government’s epic coverup of the SARS epidemic.

This time, rather than covering up the crisis for months, authorities have been faster to report the nine cases of infection by H7N9—although there was still an unexplained lag of several weeks. Crucially, China has provided the gene sequence of the virus and other information to the World Health Organization and neighboring countries. “It’s a night and day difference,” said Laurie Garrett a global health fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an interview. “I think [Chinese authorities] are far better today.”