Claims of China 'covering up' coronavirus inaccurate: US media

The narrative that "China covered up the coronavirus" is inaccurate and so are the claims supporting the narrative, said an opinion piece published recently in US magazine The National Interest.

The article, written by Mitchell Blatt, an editorial assistant at The National Interest, was entitled "Don't Listen to the 'China Covered Up the Coronavirus' Narrative".

Listing a few claims the US administration used to hold China responsible for the wide spread of the virus, which included undercounting data, slow response and denial of human-to-human transmission, the commentary refuted them one by one.

"The claims of a 'cover-up' are inaccurate. They are nothing but a cover for politicians and countries with antagonistic relationships towards China to defend themselves in front of their domestic publics and to pressure China internationally," it said.

As to Chinese statistics about the infection, the article said, "the number of cases reported by different cities and regions in China shows a strong correlation with the amount of outbound travel from Wuhan to those regions, multiple papers have found," indicating that the numbers reported were "relatively accurate and not fabricated."

Citing figures and examples in the United States and some European countries, the article said China's overall response was "more effective than most countries."

Noting that the White House has been trying to turn China into a scapegoat, it pointed out that "the reasons for the severe outbreak here (the United States) have to do with mistakes by governors, government agencies, and (US President) Donald Trump himself."

By comparison, the article made the biased blame plain. "When China mishandles a pandemic, it is ascribed to malfeasance; when the United States and Europe do, it is the ordinary, expected incompetence."

Concluding the article, the author said the narrative is not only inaccurate and "being used to absolve domestic leaders of responsibility for their mistakes, but it is also in a sense an anti-democracy narrative."