http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0502/c90000-9686414.html

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday reiterated that the novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19 is "natural in origin."

Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, told a virtual press conference from Geneva that scientists who are examining the genetic sequences of the virus have assured "again and again that this virus is natural in origin."

http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0503/c90000-9686646.html

Some U.S. politicians are making the COVID-19 pandemic a political show, from repeatedly politicizing the disease and stigmatizing other countries, to the lousy cliché of claiming compensation.

The political farce staged again and again by the U.S., a major country that touts itself as an “international leader”, is astonishing people around the world.

Even American media outlets outlined the need for joint anti-pandemic efforts from the international society, the mission to save lives, and the trend to conduct anti-pandemic cooperation. However, trying to divert people’s attention, the U.S. politicians showed no conscience, and they shall never be tolerated for undermining international cooperation.

According to the best practices for naming new human infectious diseases jointly made by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations, disease names shall not include countries or regions. However, the U.S. politicians blatantly violated the rules and called the novel coronavirus “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus.” While the international society is generally lauding China’s contribution made at huge sacrifice, they are forming cliques for blackmailing.

What they have done is an affront to international law and justice. The terms about sovereign immunity in the international law stipulate that the practices and treasure of a country are not bound to the legislation, jurisdiction or administration of other countries. More importantly, the sudden outbreak of an epidemic is a global public health incidence, which is considered force majeure in legal context.

Facts indicate that China’s containment efforts do not have any causality with the outbreak in the U.S. Even former Counselor on International Law Chimène Keitner in the U.S. Department of State couldn’t tolerate the practices of some U.S. politicians.

However, some U.S. politicians did not drop the idea at all to claim compensation, and they resorted to exceptions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Lea Brilmayer, professor of international law at Yale Law School called such practice “a last-ditch effort to do something to respond to the political situation,” and Keitner considered it a “total nightmare.”

According to U.S. media, the White House National Security Council instigated U.S. officials to shift the blames to China for the coronavirus, and the Senate Republican campaign arm distributed a 57-page messaging strategy that urged Republican candidates to blame China for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Tom Ginsburg of political science at the University of Chicago saw through the plot, saying the lawsuits against China aim to “cover up for the U.S. government’s own errors” and offer political support for the Republicans in the November election.

Blatantly trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and damaging the international rule of law with supremacy, the U.S. is standing on the totally opposite side of international justice.

U.S. politicians should listen to the sincere advice from the civilized world, as the continuing farce would only lead to fewer supports and self-humiliation.

Way to go King Donald! Destroy SEATO next?

How does a country that makes up just 4.25% of the world's total population account for 1 third of all known cases and over a quarter of the world's deaths?

We get outbreaks of lyssavirus and more recently Hendra virus and these outbreak happen here when bat colonies become stressed, if we didn't get onto these outbreaks fast they could be just as infective. There are many different viruses linked to bats all over the world.

Any country in the world that has fruit bats can be a possible trigger for such outbreak in the future and pollution, climate change along with habitat loss is stressing them very badly these days, so they get back at us by crapping in our water.

So stop trying to put the blame where little Donny wants it.

I think "The Chump" should change his slogan from MAGA to MALA.
Make America Laugh Again because he's doing a hell of a job of having the world laugh at him. :-)

@Wiggo
I blame "Crocodile Dundee" :-)

http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0503/c90000-9686524.html

The old saying, brazenly upheld by some Western politicians, that "a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth" is in itself untrue, because in the face of facts, a lie, no matter how many times it is repeated or how delicately it is fabricated, remains what it is.

So do the lies made by some U.S. politicians on China's role in the global fight against the novel coronavirus.

Panic persists among them as, in a little more than three months, the number of COVID-19 cases has surpassed 1 million and related deaths topped 60,000 in the United States, since the first confirmed case of the coronavirus was reported on Jan. 21 in the country.

It is their nonfeasance and dereliction of duty that ultimately incurred such an incessantly worsening predicament to the world's sole superpower.

Yet facing growing voices on their failure to contain the pandemic, those politicians, drawing upon great power politics, decided to distort reality and contemporary history by telling out-and-out lies and making up stories, in a bid to divert the blame onto China.

As the COVID-19 situation continues to worsen in the United States, their smearing campaign against China has become even more unscrupulous. Calling China "the origin of the coronavirus" and blaming China for "hiding information," they are desperate to hold China accountable for the pandemic, and blackmail China to "compensate" for the losses caused by COVID-19.

Though it is widely acknowledged that the tracing of the virus' origin is a scientific issue and should be conducted by scientists and medical experts, some, with ulterior motives, tried their best to propagate a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus emanated from a research lab in Wuhan.

Like the rest of the world, China is a victim of the pandemic, not an accomplice with the virus. By smearing China and instigating anti-China sentiment around the world, those politicians intend to frame China as an untrustworthy partner.

The accusation that China delayed information-sharing on COVID-19 to win the vaccine race for economic gains cannot hold water. As a matter of fact, China has been updating the United States on the coronavirus and its response since Jan. 3, which was recorded by international organizations and media outlets, including The Washington Post and The New York Times.

With more information unveiled, the timeline on how the pandemic has unfolded in the United States will be clarified step by step, which means the current U.S. administration's irresponsibility in handling the pandemic will be increasingly exposed to the public.

They should have done a much better job in dealing with the public crisis, but their entrenched arrogance, prejudice and ignorance only led to postponed and wrong decisions.

At the early stage of the outbreak, what concerned Washington most was the performance of the U.S. stock market, instead of the virus' threat to human lives.

Since as early as January a dozen warnings about the coronavirus outbreak have been reported to the White House by its intelligence officials, according to The Washington Post, but U.S. President Donald Trump still said in late February that the virus would disappear "like a miracle."

Commenting on the sluggish decisions of the U.S. federal government at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, The Lancet, a general medical journal, said in an editorial: "The degree to which the USA stalled in taking aggressive action to curtail the spread of COVID-19 is directly the product of an administration marked by consistently poor timing, intent on making decisions in favor of economic interests instead of those that are guided by science and to protect health."

The editorial, dated April 18, also described the U.S. government's hasty decision to reopen the economy as putting "dollars over deaths."

A recently-leaked GOP memo of 57 pages also stresses the strategy by advising Republican candidates to deal with voters' inquiries and fury by attacking China. Even American citizens feel ashamed by the brazen tactic of deflecting blame.

In just over three months, the United States' death toll in the COVID-19 pandemic has exceeded that in the Vietnam War. It is the American people that suffer the most, and it is the U.S. politicians' tilted focus on their re-election, instead of their people, that led to the misery.

Coining such labels as "China virus," they have carefully crafted the "U.S. narrative" to frame and defame China, in a bid to turn the war between humans and the coronavirus into a "new Cold War" to suppress China.

Liars should never be allowed to reconstruct reality. Any stigmatization and defamation is disrespect for the millions of medical personnel who have fought on the frontlines, for the over 10 million people in Wuhan who lived for 76 days in lockdown, and for the 1.4 billion Chinese people who have strictly disciplined themselves to help curb the virus' spread.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0503/c90000-9686550.html

There is "no scientific backing" for the two claims floated recently by some U.S. politicians and media outlets that COVID-19 could be human-made and have escaped from a laboratory, scientists have said.

"The origin of the novel coronavirus is a legitimate area of scientific inquiry, in which there are still open questions," said an article posted on April 22 on BuzzFeed News.

The piece, written by reporter Ryan Broderick and based on interviews with several scientists, is titled "Scientists Haven't Found Proof The Coronavirus Escaped From A Lab In Wuhan. Trump Supporters Are Spreading The Rumor Anyway."

Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, told BuzzFeed that he wasn't even comfortable calling the idea that the lab was the source of the outbreak a theory. "A theory is based on results," he said. "I think it's driven by politics, frankly."

"People who are saying it escaped from a lab have no idea what they're talking about," he said. "No human could ever design this virus."

Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, said there is currently no evidence that the coronavirus originated in a lab -- either as a deliberate creation or an accidental release.

"There was a very early cluster (of cases) in the (Wuhan seafood) market," he said, citing the assessment of virologist Trevor Bedford. "If the lab was the point of spillover, you wouldn't necessarily see the early clustering in the market."

On April 21, World Health Organization spokesperson Fadela Chaib told a news briefing that "all available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not manipulated or constructed in a lab or somewhere else."

They have to recover their lost profits somehow. Their shareholders demand it. :-)

Your point is?

Then we must include the total COVID-19 deaths, per Country, as also inflated and/or meaningless?
Both are necessary to look at during this time of limited knowledge.
Pandemic Politics is not helpful.
Stay safe

The numbers are not meaningless. The way they are compared between countries and even within countries are for now useless. It will take a year or more to figure out what went wrong...
What's looking positive though is that many countries sees that the curve has flattened. The R-factor have now been lower then 1 for a week in Sweden.

That's not a quote but a heading. Click on the picture, you'll be surprised.
I bet any US or UK news website will display reports regarding Trump or Johnson's activities.
Your fixation on countries other than your own...
...especially during the current situation is...

Your point is?

"Now there's the leader of a country which makes up 18.47% of the world's population that got on top of a pandemic"?

What is your fixation on blaming China for everything that is going wrong?

Answers
your post
Please be aware that an American citizen on this forum provided those answers. :-)

Because it's plain to many that you have a very big problem that you don't want to see. ;-)

Russia is certainly the mover in the top 10 at present shoving Turkey out of 7th spot and there's still several other countries rising fast lower down (Sweden will eventually lose its 21st spot).

Japan is now down to 31st spot now (though no figures have come in for the last 48hrs, but I doubt that that will change things when they do) and South Korea is in 37th with a bevy of countries closing fast while Australia is in 47th with a couple of others wanting to change that also.

If all things were equal this page, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries, would look more like this 1, https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/, so we here have several spots more to drop yet. ;-)

I was, of course, replying to your opinion regarding those who post about a Country, not their own.
"Your fixation on countries other than your own..."
Sorry, I don't share your belief.

Good for you.
So you can ask questions but when anyone attempts to answer, either with facts or opinions, you categorise them as "beliefs"?

I just ask questions and raise possibilities.

Possibilities? Don't you mean beliefs?

Russia is certainly the mover in the top 10 at present shoving Turkey out of 7th spot and there's still several other countries rising fast lower down (Sweden will eventually lose its 21st spot).

Yes. Tour de Corona is still underway. The black horse Sweden is getting behind perhaps because they are only soft lockdowning.
So far no one in this race have been being caught in a doping control. Which is weird. The audience want more vaccines and drugs...

https://www.dw.com/en/campaign-aims-to-washthehate-of-coronavirus-racism/a-53309233

The #WashTheHate campaign in the US calls for solidarity with Asian-Americans who have seen an increase of attacks since the outbreak of COVID-19. It makes clear that hate will get you sick, even if the virus doesn't.

Since growing up in New York City, Telly Wong has witnessed the September 11 terror attacks, Hurricane Sandy and now COVID-19 — and racism aimed at Asian-Americans that has accompanied the virus.

In addition to the growing number of news reports about Asian-Americans being attacked, one of Wong's friends told him that a stranger attacked her on the street while she had on a mask before many other people had started wearing them — she ended up with a broken hand.

Wong said the coronavirus attacks reminded him of another series of crimes committed against Asians in the United States.

"I remember being a kid in the 80s and 90s, there was a rush of assaults and robberies and even murders of Chinese delivery men", he told DW. "They were just reported as hit and runs. No one connected the dots."

Now a senior vice president at a New York marketing and communication agency, Wong said he knew he could raise awareness of the issue and help people connect the dots this time

He and his colleagues launched the #WashTheHate campaign on March 18 to collect and publish stories and videos of incidents that would otherwise go unnoticed. The timing was right: A day before the planned launch, US President Donald Trump publicly called the coronavirus the "Chinese virus."

"Wash away the hate!"

Actor Tzi Ma is one of the campaign's supporters. He describes himself on Instagram bio as "Hollywood's favorite Asian dad." The Chinese-American star is known for his role in the "Rush Hour" film series and recently played another Asian dad in the drama "The Farewell."

Ma was one of the internet and entertainment celebrities who posted a video for #WashTheHate. In his video, the 57-year-old washes his hands while talking to the camera: "We all know washing our hands can help us prevent the coronavirus affecting us physically. But what about what the virus can do to us emotionally? We are all scared. We act out of our fears by wearing masks, hoarding supplies and, sadly, some of us lash out at Asian-Americans as if Asian-Americans were responsible for this virus just for being of Asian descent. Stop it. Acts of violence against Asian-Americans will not stop the spread of this virus. The next time you wash your hands, wash out the hate you may have for your fellow Americans. Hate will get you sick, even if the virus doesn't."

Verbal attacks, physical violence

Talking about the campaign, Ma told Variety magazine about how a driver of a car next to him at the supermarket yelled, "You should be quarantined!" before driving away. It was one of many incidents happening across the United States as the coronavirus spreads.

In Texas, a Burmese-American and his two children were attacked and injured by a man with a knife. The FBI said the 19-year-old suspect likely tried to kill the family because they looked Chinese and he believed they would spread the coronavirus.

In Brooklyn, a man yelled at a 26-year-old at a train station, telling her to, "Go back to China! Get your temperature checked. You need to leave!" He then went on to steal her phone.

Between mid-March and mid-April around 1,500 attacks or harassment cases were recorded across the United States with most instances occurring in California and New York, according to Stop AAPI Hate, an association of several NGOs in the United States that has launched a hotline to track verbal abuse, assault and hate crimes against Asian-Americans related to the outbreak of COVID-19.

After initial shock, people look for scapegoats

While a social media campaign can't stop violence on its own, Duncan Hwang of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon told DW it is important to push back against harmful narratives and highlight the challenges and experiences Asian-Americans are experiencing.

"Those incidents really shake people and make them feel uncomfortable to go out. It also normalizes violence against Asian-Americans." Hwang said.

For some in the United States, it is Asian-Americans who have been made into the culprits of the coronavirus, said Wellington Chen, executive director of New York City's Chinatown Partnership.

"We consulted crisis management experts and learned that historically, whenever there is a pandemic, yellow fever or plague, after the hysteria phase, there is a second phase: Who is the devil?" Chen said.

He added that witnesses speaking out about racially motivated attacks play an important role in preventing them from escalating.

"Around 14 percent of the population in New York City is Asian American. We need the remaining 86 percent to stand up to the abuser, harasser or hater, to say, "'Stop it!'"

If Russia keeps up its current pace they will pass Germany (currently in 6th spot) in 3 days and then France (5th spot) not after that (possibly within hours, but certainly within 24hrs) and they could also catch the U.K. before the end of this coming weekend (and possibly do it before the U.K. gets within striking distance of Italy). :-O

Once this pandemic is over and all the reports cards are in I wonder how many of those countries that are ultimately found wanting for whatever reasons will take heed from those countries that proved to come out on top?

Just seen that A.O.C.'s Congressional District, New York’s 14th, is the most infected in the US, with 19,200 cases as of 30th April.
An eerie coincidence, the neighbourhoods of Corona and North Corona are in the district.

For A.O.C., ‘Existential Crises’ as Her District Becomes the Coronavirus Epicenter

Would have put it in her thread, but it's closed due to lack of use.

Hehe:)
Here's another song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojrtwXqqc6g