US scholar warns against anti-China theory amid pandemic

According to CNN, even US President Donald Trump's top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci (left) dismissed claims of an accidental release of the coronavirus from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan. - Reuters

WASHINGTON (Xinhua): Blaming China for the Covid-19 pandemic with reckless lies "could push the world to conflict," a US scholar warned Wednesday (May 6).

In an opinion article published by CNN, professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, blasted the "big lie" of the US government that "China is the cause of America's problems."

The US right-wing forces even claimed that the new coronavirus pandemic was the result of an accidental release from a Chinese laboratory and that China's "cover up" blocked an effective global response.

However, such claims have been dismissed by scientists and experts around the world. According to CNN, even US President Donald Trump's top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci and the still-secret findings of the Five Eyes intelligence agencies pour cold water on this claim.

Calling such charges "reckless and dangerous," Sachs warned that they "could push the world to conflict just as the Bush Administration's lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq pushed the US into war in 2003."

Despite scientific findings and analyses which indicated a natual origin of the virus, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted on Sunday "There is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan."

Sachs wrote that the situation reminded the country "the end of McCarthy era," recalling that Senator Joseph McCarthy used "lies and innuendos to scare Americans into submission."

"Aside from the claim of a laboratory release, the US administration and the right-wing media also charge that China covered up the outbreak more generally for weeks," Sachs wrote.

"Yet consider the record. The doctors in Wuhan first noted unusual cases of viral pneumonia in mid-December. Wuhan health officials notified the World Health Organization office in China on Dec 31. The China health agency called the US CDC on Jan 3. The genome was fully sequenced and published online on Jan 11, and Wuhan was locked down on Jan 23."

"Given the inevitable early confusion about a new disease that had never before been seen, that is a rapid timeline," he said, adding "The right-wing charges against China made no sense."

"The bottom line on the epidemic and Trump's dismal failure," according to the professor, is that as of Jan 30, when the WHO declared a global public health emergency, there was no Covid-19 death in the United States.

"Now there are more than 71,000 US deaths," he said. "There was plenty of warning." - Xinhua