People cover up things because at the time when the cover up starts the damage/cost of exposing the problem and taking the blame far outweighs the cost of doing

People cover up things because at the time when the cover up starts the damage/cost of exposing the problem and taking the blame far outweighs the cost of doing a cover up. As time progresses (the simple view is) one of two things can happen, either the incident blows over and so the cover up was worth it, or the person needs to keep maintaining and increasing the cover up, thus increasing the damage/cost of the cover up. In this way we end up with cover ups that cause more damage and are more costly than the original incidents, even though at the onset just owning up to the error would be less costly in the long term.