VIRAL ROW
China claims US military brought coronavirus to Wuhan after Donald Trump chief accused Beijing of cover up
CHINA has claimed that the US military brought coronavirus to Wuhan as it hit back against US accusations of a coverup.
The US and China are playing the blame game as that, with a current 3.4 per cent mortality rate,
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US National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien, started it yesterday when he said that the speed of had probably cost the world two months when it could have been preparing for the outbreak.
His criticism comes as the US faces a crisis due to what critics are calling a dangerously poor , leading to a national shortage of testing kits.
He said: "Unfortunately, rather than using best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up"
"We have done a good job responding to it but the way that this started out in China, and the way it was handled from the outset, was not right."
"It probably cost the world community two months to respond," during which "we could have dramatically curtailed what happened both in and what's now happening across the world".
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian hit back at O'Brien, saying that it was the United States that lacked transparency.
Zhao wrote: "When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals?
"It might be who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!"
Zhao did not offer any evidence for his suggestion that the US military might be to blame for the outbreak in China.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang also criticised US officials for their "immoral and irresponsible" comments.
Geng told Beijing press that such remarks by US officials would not help epidemic efforts and said that China's actions to slow the spread had bought the world time to prepare.
He said: "We wish that a few officials in the US would at this time concentrate their energy on responding to the virus and promoting cooperation, and not on shifting the blame to China."
China says it has now managed to reduce the number of cases and most reported cases are now coming out of other countries.
The Chinese authorities credit firm measures they took in January and February, including the near total shutdown of Hubei, for preventing outbreaks in other Chinese cities on the scale of Wuhan and slowing the spread abroad.
However there have been conflicting reports of the true nature of what is going on on the ground, with accusations of a cover up as far back as January.
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Trumps administration has said that their decision to limit air travel from China at the end of January has stemmed the outbreak.
It is broadly believed that the wet markets in Wuhan caused cross contamination leading to the virus' spread.
There are 128,400 known cases across the world; around 81,000 are in China, with 3,179 reported dead. The US has 1,701 cases with 40 dead.
![The twitter feed called O'Brein's comments 'politically-motivated attacks and [a] senseless blame game'](http://mcb777.fun/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/NINTCHDBPICT000570624035.jpg)
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