China’s role in spreading the coronavirus is drawing increasing scrutiny as America slides into what may prove the worst phase of the pandemic.
A classified intelligence report given to the White House last week showed that China concealed the extent of the outbreak, according to Bloomberg. Now, the United States has overtaken China as the epicenter of the global contagion, with 206,200 confirmed cases and 4,633 deaths.
China has confirmed some 82,300 cases and 3,316 deaths, according to a case tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
“We could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming,” Vice President Mike Pence told CNN Wednesday. “What appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China.”
Republicans blasted the tyranny in Beijing for hiding facts from the world.
“Without commenting on any classified information, this much is painfully obvious: The Chinese Communist Party has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie about coronavirus to protect the regime,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz accused the Chinese government not only of withholding information about the coronavirus outbreak, but also of launching “economic warfare” against America by straining the pharmaceutical industry, which relies heavily on Chinese manufacturing.
Jeff Sessions, former attorney general under President Trump who is now running in Alabama to rejoin the Senate, called Wednesday for a congressional select committee to investigate China.
The China communist government caused the Wuhan Virus pandemic that is engulfing the entire world, sowing death and destruction everywhere. I am calling today for Congress to immediately establish a Select Committee on China to lead the investigation. https://t.co/pUyEgQ7nzr
— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) April 1, 2020
At a Wednesday evening press briefing, Trump said the U.S. doesn’t know whether Chinese statistics are accurate. But he stopped short of blaming China.
“The relationship with China is a good one,” he said, citing his trade deal with Beijing.
Trump has referred to the coronavirus as “the Chinese virus,” which he said was meant to rebut claims by a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman that the U.S. military introduced the virus into Wuhan. The Chinese government has dropped that claim. “I’ll assume the high-level people didn’t know about it,” Trump said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, many nations braced for the crisis to last longer and take a heavy toll.
The Wimbledon tennis championships, scheduled for June 29 to July 12, were canceled for the first time since World War II.
Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, announced that a nationwide lockdown will extend to April 13 at least, according to Reuters. Johns Hopkins data show that the rate of infection is starting to slow in Italy, the first Western country to put a nationwide lockdown in place. Though the total number of confirmed cases in Italy has surpassed 110,500, the pace of growth has fallen from about 6,000 new cases each day since March 25 to about 4,000 new cases a day since March 28.
Stocks plunged Wednesday following Trump’s warning the day prior that the nation is headed into a “very, very painful two weeks.”
All stock indexes dropped nearly 5%, a bleak start for the second quarter. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down nearly 1,000 points.
White House officials project that 100,000 to 240,000 people in the U.S. will die due to the virus. Many of these deaths are expected within the next few weeks. All three stock indexes have lost at least one-quarter of their value since setting record highs in February.
Businesses, banks, and households can hold out without income for only so long. “Everything depends on how long it lasts, but if this goes on for a long time, it’s certainly going to be the mother of all financial crises,” top Harvard economist and financial crisis historian Ken Rogoff said.
Governors in Florida and Mississippi became the latest to issue stay-at-home orders as the number of people infected by the new plague topped 200,000, according to Johns Hopkins.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have included a $760 billion infrastructure bill as part of their next proposal for boosting the virus-infected economy. It includes green energy initiatives that have become a priority for the party, such as a transition to renewable energy and old favorites such as more high-speed rail and electric vehicles.
