China Does Not Rule Out U.S. Role in Virus Spread

Date: 14 March 2020 - 23:27

News ID: ۷۷۰۸۳

BEIJING (Dispatches) -- The U.S. administration has summoned China’s ambassador to Washington to protest a Chinese foreign ministry official’s suggestion that the U.S. military is responsible for the spread of the new coronavirus in the Asian country.
"He was summoned with regard to what the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said over COVID-19,” a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, blasted the U.S. on Thursday for what he called lack of transparency in official reports regarding the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.
He suggested that the U.S. military might have brought the new coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, the birthplace of the current global pandemic.
"When did patient zero begin in U.S.? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! U.S. owe us an explanation!” Zhao said in a tweet.
The Chinese government had been criticized by Western media and particularly by U.S. officials for what was alleged to be a slow response to the outbreak and of not being sufficiently transparent.
Beijing has, however, been taking strict measures since the outbreak began, including locking down Wuhan, a city of roughly 11 million people, which appears to have paid off.
The COVID-19 disease, caused by the new coronavirus, emerged in the provincial capital of Hubei late last year. It has so far infected over 147,000 people and killed more than 5,500 others.
The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.
In the latest sign that the coronavirus outbreak in mainland China is continuing to subside, officials said Friday that there were more new imported cases than cases that originated locally, officials said.
Of the 11 new diagnoses in the country on Friday, only four — all within the Hubei province where the outbreak began — came from within China, the National Health Commission said.
Overall, new cases were up slightly from the eight diagnoses the previous day.
The seven cases brought into China came from overseas travelers from the U.S., Italy and Saudi Arabia, the commission said, bringing the total number of cases that came from the outside up to 95.