Sen. Tom Cotton refused to accept claims China made about the origin of the deadly coronavirus, which killed 38 people in China yesterday.
“[China] also claimed for almost two months, until earlier this week, that it had originated in a seafood market in Wuhan. That locals had contracted it from animals in say bat soup or snake tartar,” said Cotton. “That is not the case.”
The Arkansas Republican cited a study published by the Lancet that showed of the original 40 cases in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, 14 people who contracted the virus never set foot in the Wuhan wildlife market where Chinese authorities have claimed the virus originated.
“As one epidemiologist said, ‘That virus went into the seafood market before it came out of the seafood market.’ We still don’t know where it originated,” Cotton said. “I would note that Wuhan also has China’s only biosafety level four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.”
The Washington Times reported last week that Wuhan Institute of Virology is the only laboratory in China capable of working with such deadly pathogens.
Cotton, 42, called for a travel ban to and from China earlier this week. “Given the latest developments and the many unknowns about this virus, we ought to follow Benjamin Franklin’s maxim: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Cotton wrote in a letter to Trump’s administration.
The World Health Organization declared the virus a “global public health emergency” on Thursday as the number of infected patients rose above 8,000 internationally.
China claimed—for almost two months—that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market. That is not the case. @TheLancet published a study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the seafood market, including Patient Zero. pic.twitter.com/PdgqgHjkGy
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 30, 2020
