You touched on something that worries me, and that is how this virus has just made the CPC crack down even harder on the internet and what little free (foreign) press was still allowed to operate in the country.

We can get a glimpse of what's going on around the rest of the country via personal accounts, but without any reporters left to fact-check, we can't be sure what we see is representative. Which, of course, is exactly what Xi wants. Well-researched articles are harder to discredit than social media posts and hearsay.