Red China lied about the Chinese Virus outbreak that at this writing has infected nearly 200,000 Americans and killed more than 4,000.
Three U.S. officials divulged the gist of a classified report to Bloomberg News that says the Chinese Communist government purposely low-balled the figures in their country, which likely affected the U.S. response to it.
The deadly pathogen oozed out of the “wet markets” of Wuhan, where bats and other exotic animals are sold for human consumption.
Frighteningly, London’s Daily Mail reported just days ago that the markets in at least two Chinese cities are open for business and selling dogs, rabbits, and other hapless creatures.
Communist Lies
The White House received the report of the ChiCom lies last week, Bloomberg reported:
China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials.
The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret and declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.
But the bogus numbers are just one problem.
On Tuesday, as Bloomberg reported, Deborah Birx, Chinese Virus chief for the White House, explained that doctors “interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected…. I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that we see what happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain.”
And, Bloomberg reported, “China is not the only country with suspect public reporting. Western officials have pointed to Iran, Russia, Indonesia and especially North Korea, which has not reported a single case…. Others including Saudi Arabia and Egypt may also be playing down their numbers.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Bloomberg noted, has told China to fess up and tell the truth.
“This data set matters,” he said on Tuesday. Stopping the virus and saving lives “depends on the ability to have confidence and information about what has actually transpired.”
China Knew Bats Cause Disease
Even worse, the ChiComs could have stopped the outbreak if they had shut down the “wet markets” that not only retail the bats but also even dogs and cats.
Reported the Washington Times on March 18:
Scientific studies concluded that the 2002 SARS epidemic likely started from coronaviruses in bats that made their way to humans in Guangdong province. Chinese tastes favor raw bats, snakes and other animals that are bought live and slaughtered.
Today, bats are suspected as the source for the devastating coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Officially known as SARS-CoV-2, it was first reported in Wuhan, China, in November or December. Wildlife groups have urged Beijing for years to shut down sales and consumption of these animals.
A 2006 paper by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained how research into SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) brought a better understanding of virus-infested bats.
“The data obtained so far strongly suggest that bats (horseshoe bats in particular) are most likely the reservoir host of SARS-CoV,” the study said. Bat-linked coronaviruses seem to be species-specific, and SARS-like-CoVs discovered so far are exclusively associated with horseshoe bats, it added.
Conservationists say the only way to stop the spread of virulent pathogens such as the SARS-CoV-2 is to shut down those markets everywhere.
The head of the Wildlife Conservation Society told a website how viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 spread among animals, and then to people, the Times reported:
“The animals are captured in the wild (or alternatively raised on a so-called wildlife farm) and transported to a market, where they interact with other species from other locations,” Mr. Walzer said. “Here, the animals are confined under stressful conditions, exchanging excrements and thus viruses before being slaughtered on-site. This allows for blood and organs to be exposed and increases the interface to humans.”
That hasn’t phased the ChiComs, though.
Three days ago, the Daily Mail published photos of caged dogs and cats sold for slaughter and human consumption and this reassuring news:
As the pandemic that began in Wuhan forced countries worldwide to go into lockdown, a Mail on Sunday correspondent yesterday watched as thousands of customers flocked to a sprawling indoor market in Guilin, south-west China.
Here cages of different species were piled on top of each other. In another meat market in Dongguan, southern China, another correspondent photographed a medicine seller returning to business on Thursday with a billboard advertising bats — thought to be the cause of the initial Wuhan outbreak — along with scorpions and other creatures.
Image: Samara Heisz via iStock / Getty Images Plus
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
