'Failure': US criticises China for COVID-19 handling, calls for more research into origin

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned China for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and said that country’s failure to provide the world with access to global health experts made the outbreak worse than it was meant to be. In an interview with NBC that aired on April 11, Blinken said that there was a need to “get to the bottom” of the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. 

The top US diplomat’s remarks on Sunday reiterated the stance that was also put forth by the previous administration of former US President Donald Trump who also criticised China for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  On NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’, Blinken also denounced the Chinese government for its “failure” to cooperate in the primitive stages of a global health crisis that according to him led to the situation get “out of hand.”

“I think China knows that in the early stages of Covid, it didn't do what it needed to do, which was to, in real time, give access to international experts, in real time to share information, in real time to provide real transparency," he said.

"One result of that failure," he said, is that the coronavirus "got out of hand faster and with, I think, much more egregious results than it might otherwise."

‘COVID-19 calls for global approach’

Blinken also said that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of a global approach with a “stronger global health security system” to prevent pandemics in the future. He said, “That means making a real commitment to transparency — to information-sharing, to access for experts. It means strengthening the World Health Organization and reforming it so it can do that. And China has to play a part in that.” Blinken also said that it was important for authorities to find a more conclusive accounting of how the COVID-19 pandemic began in December 2019.

The US Secretary of State said, “We need to do that precisely so we fully understand what happened, in order to have the best shot possible preventing it from happening again,” he said. “That’s why we need to get to the bottom of this.”

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