A new bipartisan House resolution condemns the Chinese government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, which is believed to have originated in the city of Wuhan.
Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, a Republican, will introduce the resolution Tuesday, according to Fox News, which criticizes China for making “multiple, serious mistakes in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak.”
These mistakes “heightened the severity and spread of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which include the Chinese government’s intentional spread of misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus, a refusal to cooperate with international health authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists and malicious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities,” according to the resolution.
As of Tuesday morning, there were nearly 400,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus around the globe and more than 17,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker. More than 46,000 people in the United States alone have been infected, with health experts and lawmakers bracing for the number to increase.
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton helped lead the resolution, which also denounces a disinformation campaign from the Chinese government that “claimed that COVID-19 originated in the United States and that the United States army brought the virus to Wuhan to wage biological warfare.”
The House representatives also took issue with the communist country’s treatment of Muslims, stating, “The detention of over 1,000,000 [Uighur] Muslims and other ethnic minorities in ‘re-education camps’, whose crowded and unsanitary conditions makes the camps hotspots for viral disease and leave prisoners at an elevated risk of contracting COVID-19.”
While bipartisan, the resolution is supported mostly by Republicans, including Reps. Kevin Hern, Austin Scott, Trent Kelly, Barry Loudermilk, and Adam Kinzinger, among others.
