Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, accused China of inflicting an “enormous amount of pain” on America by not sharing information on the coronavirus outbreak. He blamed China for the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis facing the US, asserting President Donald Trump also felt the same way.
Mr Pompeo told Fox News on Thursday night: “China caused an enormous amount of pain, loss of life and now a huge challenge for the global economy and the American economy as well by not sharing the information they had.
“Sean, you should know we still don’t have full transparency from the Chinese Communist Party.”
He added the US Government is concerned China still has not fully disclosed the extend of the crisis in the country.
He said: “I’m still concerned there are things we don’t know.
“We don’t know the history, and we haven’t been able to get our team on the ground to do the work it needs to do.”
The Secretary of State then warned China “will pay” for its delayed response to the outbreak.
He said: “[Americans] know this is a result of the virus that originated in Wuhan, China, and they know the Chinese government didn’t do the things it needed to do…
“I am very confident that the Chinese Communist Party will pay a price for what they did here, certainly from the United States.
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“I don’t know exactly what form that will take.”
Mr Pompeo said, as a result, the US will focus on developing its own pharmaceutical goods, to help stop its reliance on China.
But he said at the moment America’s focus was on reviving the country’s economy, not holding China to account.
He said: “It’s on making sure we keep Americans safe, take down the health risk, keep people healthy as we can, and get this economy going back.”
The Secretary of State also took the opportunity to hit out at the World Health Organisation, following Trump’s decision to pull funding to the agency.
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He said: “This is an ongoing challenge in that the Chinese Communist Party and the World Health Organization have failed to do the things they have the responsibility to do when they have a pandemic inside of their country.”
President Trump caused a stir on Thursday after he suggested people should inject themselves with disinfectant to help cure themselves from coronavirus.
The medical community have lambasted the comments, accusing the US President of being irresponsible.
Mr Trump made the remarks after one of his officials gave a presentation on the impacts of bleach and sunlight on coronavirus.
This prompted the President to say: “So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that has not been checked but you’re going to test it?
“And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way.
“And I think you said you’re going to test that, too? Sounds interesting.
“Right, and then I see the disinfectant, it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.”
Responding to the press briefing, pulmonologist Dr Vin Gupta told NBC News: “This notion of injecting or ingesting any type of cleansing product into the body is irresponsible and it’s dangerous.”
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