The United States believes that China reported the coronavirus outbreak too late to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“And even after that, they did not share all the information they had at their disposal,” said Secretary of State Mike Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo states that China was trying to keep secret how dangerous the new virus was. That surfaced last year in the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan and spread around the world in the months that followed.
The US is now the most affected worldwide. There the government points with an accusing finger to China and the WHO.
“We are convinced that the Chinese Communist Party did not report the outbreak of the new coronavirus to the World Health Organization in time,” said Pompeo at a news conference. According to him, that should have happened within 24 hours.
“They have been silent for a month that the virus has been spread from person to person until it has spread to all provinces of China,” the minister said.
“They forced people who wanted to warn the world to keep silent, stopped testing new samples, and destroyed existing ones.”
Pompeo blamed the WHO for not raising the alarm about the Chinese way of working. The government of US President Donald Trump, who himself is under fire for his approach to the outbreak, has now turned off the money to that international organization.