As one of the China-WHO joint experts, who visited China in February for a field study, Van Kerkhove said, “China has worked very hard to bring the outbreak under control.”
“I was there for two weeks and working directly with ministry officials, and officials from all different sectors, from hospitals, through communities, to really see what was put in place to bring those numbers down,” she said.
White House diatribe
The White House on Friday said China “mishandled the situation” after the coronavirus outbreak in its Wuhan city, but refrained from giving a definitive answer on retaliatory measures against the Asian giant.
“The markets are down substantially today after the President yesterday suggested in the East Room that he might use tariffs to punish China over the coronavirus. Is there any serious consideration being given to putting new tariffs on China or was the President just spitballing yesterday?” the new White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked during her maiden press conference. “I won’t get ahead of any announcements from the President, but I will echo the President’s displeasure with China. It’s no secret that China mishandled this situation,” McEnany told reporters.
“Just a few examples for you; they did not share the genetic sequence until a professor in Shanghai did so on his own. The very next day China shut down his lab for quote rectification. They slow-walked information on human to human transmission alongside the World Health Organization and didn’t let US investigators in at a very important time,” she said.
“So, we take displeasure with China’s actions, but I certainly won’t get out of the president with those announcements. Again, when it comes to retaliatory measures, I will not get ahead of the president on that,” McEnany asserted.
The White House Press Secretary said the US continues to have very limited and dubious data from China and the current assessments indicated that Trump’s statement, that coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, is consistent with what some analysts believe is the epicenter of where the virus began.
Tariff on China ‘certainly an option’: Trump
US President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated that imposing an additional tariff on China for allegedly mishandling the coronavirus outbreak is “certainly an option”.
Trump was responding to a question about his remarks a day earlier in which he had indicated at imposing tariff on China as a punishment for the spread of coronavirus.
“It’s certainly an option. It’s certainly an option,” Trump said but did not give a timeline for this.
“We’re going to see what happens. A lot of things are happening with respect to China. We’re not happy, obviously, with what happened. This is a bad situation all over the world, 182 countries. But we’ll be having a lot to say about that,” he said in response to a question. In an interview to Buck Sexton of The Buck Sexton Show, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of being non transparent on the issue of coronavirus. ( PTI )
