The USSR had real problems but something like Chernobyl exposed the out in the open. Had it been a chemical event, the Soviets might have still gotten away with

The USSR had real problems but something like Chernobyl exposed the out in the open. Had it been a chemical event, the Soviets might have still gotten away with it. But a nuclear event with thousands of eye witnesses and even more people responsible for clean-up? And fallout that spread across the entirety of Europe? We kind of saw a similar process in the beginning of COVID, when China was actively suppressing information internally. But it may not have had the same results because of deeper state centralization and information control, as well as other countries having to bother with the same issue. Yet it still sparked a number of protests across China, due to directly or indirectly being affected by COVID-19.