The Kremlin has long maintained a culture of secrecy when it comes to controlling public information, especially involving accidents -- from industrial disasters to health emergencies. The suspicious death last week of a worker at a research lab in Siberia that has fueled global concerns about suspected pneumonic plague is just the latest example of how leaders in Moscow manage the official narrative that can often cover up the truth for years. Scarce official information about the death, which unconfirmed reports in Russia blamed on pneumonic plague, follows Soviet-era patterns of secrecy in dealing with infectious diseases and other emergencies.

Russia’s public health watchdog has denied that a lab worker who died in Siberia had spread infection to another person as global concerns swirled about suspected pneumonic plague. Rospotrebnadzor has said that the lab worker at a plague research institute in Irkutsk in southeastern Siberia died of pneumonia of unknown origin. In tersely worded statements, it said that “extensive” testing found no evidence her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with and it informed the World Health Organization that no case of plague has been registered in the Irkutsk region. In Thursday’s statement, Rospotrebnadzor rejected the reports about a second person falling ill after contact with the lab worker as fake.

Russian authorities are keeping a tight lid on information about last week’s suspicious death of a lab worker in Siberia that has been surrounded by secrecy and claims that it could have been caused by pneumonic plague. While the case has raised global concerns, Russian state TV and other national state-controlled media have steered clear of the case, which has topped independent online news outlets. Russia’s public health watchdog said the lab worker was diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology,” meaning its origin was not known. In its official statements, it does not link the case to pneumonic plague. President Donald Trump said he would speak about the issue “very soon” with President Vladimir Putin.

Russian authorities have quarantined a hospital and are monitoring contacts of an employee at a plague research institute in Siberia who contr…