Australia demands China be transparent about virus

An Australian government minister on Friday called for "more transparency" from China on the origins of the coronavirus, adding the pandemic might cause the world to rethink relations with the Asian superpower.

The statement came after Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton recovered from COVID-19, which he is thought to have contracted during a trip to Washington DC.

"I do think there will be a reset about the way in which the world interacts with China. We do want more transparency," Dutton told the Nine Network on Friday.

"When you've got a communist party that doesn't have the transparency that other comparable economies have, then that is a problem," he added.

More than 3,000 people had been infected before China’s government told the public what it had concluded six days earlier - that a pandemic was probably coming.

Beijing muffled early warnings, such that the Chinese were assured the risk of sustained human-to-human transmission was low even as infected people entered hospitals across the country and the first case outside China was found, in Thailand.

Recently, US President Donald Trump and some of his officials have flirted with an outlier theory that the new coronavirus was set loose on the world by a Chinese lab that let it escape.

A scientific consensus is still evolving. But experts overwhelmingly say analysis of the new coronavirus’ genome rules out the possibility that it was engineered by humans, as some conspiracy theories have suggested.

Australia has officially recorded 6,521 COVID-19 cases and 66 deaths.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks.

But the virus is highly contagious and can be spread by those with mild or no visible symptoms.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and could lead to death.