Article by Tyler O'Neil in "PJMedia":
On Tuesday, Attorney General
Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) filed a lawsuit in federal court aiming to hold the
Chinese Communist Pary accountable for a "sinister campaign of
malfeasance and deception" that helped spread the coronavirus across the
globe and brought concrete harm to the people of Missouri.
"The
Chinese government lied to the world about the danger and contagious
nature of COVID-19, silenced whistleblowers, and did little to stop the
spread of the disease. They must be held accountable for their actions,"
Schmitt said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
"COVID-19
has done irreparable damage to countries across the globe, causing
sickness, death, economic disruption, and human suffering. In Missouri,
the impact of the virus is very real - thousands have been infected and
many have died, families have been separated from dying loved ones,
small businesses are shuttering their doors, and those living paycheck
to paycheck are struggling to put food on their table," he added.
As
of Tuesday morning, Missouri has 5,963 confirmed cases of the
coronavirus and 215 deaths from it. According to one estimate cited by
Fox News, the economic shutdown imposed by the state in order to reduce
the spread of the coronavirus has cost Missouri about $44 billion.
Missouri
is the first state to file legal claims against China, although at
least seven federal class-action suits have been filed by private
groups. One suit filed in Florida alleged that China knew "COVID-19 was
dangerous and capable of causing a pandemic, yet slowly acted,
proverbially put their head in the sand, and/or covered it up in their
own economic self-interest."
A British nonprofit urged countries to sue China
for breaking international law, placing the damages from the
coronavirus at about $4 trillion just for the G7 countries. Sen. Tom
Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) filed a bill that would allow Americans to sue China in U.S. courts for coronavirus damages.
Schmitt's lawsuit
brings four claims against China under Missouri law. It charges Beijing
with: a tort of "public nuisance," interfering with the general
public's health and safety by "censoring media, ceasing and censoring
research, destroying scientific materials, making false and/or
misleading statements to the international community," and more;
conducting "abnormally dangerous activities" by researching
coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab where the virus may have originated;
committing a "breach of duty" by negligently allowing COVID-19 to spread
across the globe; and committing another "breach of duty" by hoarding
personal protective equipment (PPE).
"During
the critical weeks of the initial outbreak, Chinese authorities
deceived the public, suppressed crucial information, arrested
whistleblowers, denied human-to-human transmission in the face of
mounting evidence, destroyed critical medical research, permitted
millions of people to be exposed to the virus, and even hoarded personal
protective equipment—thus causing a global pandemic that was
unnecessary and preventable," the suit alleges.
According
to the lawsuit, Chinese health officials had serious evidence of
human-to-human transmission by late December, but they did not report
the outbreak to the World Health Organization until December 31. When
they did so, they denied the potential for human-to-human transmission.
According to unpublished, unconfirmed Chinese government reports seen by the South China Morning Post, the first recorded case of the coronavirus dates to November 17, 2019, weeks before The Lancet's claim that the first recorded case came on December 1. By December 8, the SCMP documents recorded between 1 and 5 new cases. By December 27, the SCMP
documents showed 181 confirmed cases, and a friend of coronavirus
whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang recalled that his medical department first
reported the new outbreak to the Wuhan Center for Disease Control on
the 27th.
On
December 30, Dr. Li sent a message to his friends about the outbreak,
and the police responded by investigating his friends. The authorities
forced Dr. Li to pledge not to spread "disruptive rumors." Meanwhile, by
that date, the SCMP documents recorded 266 cases. Li would go
on to die of COVID-19 after contracting it from his patients. On
December 31, China finally reported the outbreak to the WHO, while
claiming there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
On January 1, 2020 a Hubei official ordered
coronavirus tests halted and samples of the virus destroyed. On January
14, the WHO reported some human-to-human transmission, but quickly
retracted the claim, citing Chinese sources. Wuhan was not put under
lockdown until January 22-23. On January 26, Wuhan's mayor admitted that
5 million people had already left the city.
On
January 7, the CCP's journal Qiushi began publishing timelines of
President Xi Jinping's efforts against the outbreak. A transcript of a
speech Xi gave on February 3 referred to a statement he had made on
January 7 at a meeting of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, when he
had "issued requirements for the prevention and control of the new
Coronavirus."
Xi
Jinping could have acted to shut down Wuhan as early as January 7, two
weeks before the city was shut down. A University of Southampton study
found that if strict quarantine measures had been introduced three weeks
earlier, the coronavirus's spread would have been reduced by 95
percent.
Legal action
against the Chinese Communist Party seems extremely fitting, but it
remains unclear whether or not Schmitt's decision to sue China under
Missouri law is a proper course of action. It seems Attorney General
Bill Barr would have a stronger case if he filed a lawsuit against China
in the International Court of Justice, as 22 Republican lawmakers urged
him to do.