WH Adviser Peter Navarro: China used WHO to ‘hide the virus from the world’

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Peter Navarro said Sunday that “it’s incumbent on China to prove” that a Wuhan lab played no role in the coronavirus pandemic.
• The White House trade adviser slammed China for influencing the World Health Organization (WHO) “to hide the virus from the world.”
• Navarro also accused the country of hoarding personal protective equipment and profiting off the pandemic.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro criticized China on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” calling out the country to prove that a laboratory in Wuhan had no role in the coronavirus pandemic. Navarro also accused China of hoarding personal protective equipment (PPE) and profiting off the pandemic.

The trade adviser took aim at China on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” blaming it for taking several actions that aggravated the coronavirus crisis and “led to the deaths of many people worldwide.”

“First of all, the virus was spawned in China. Second of all, they hid the virus behind the shield of the World Health Organization. The third thing they did was basically hoard personal protective equipment and now they’re profiteering from it,” Navarro told the program.

The theory that the virus escaped from a Wuhan lab is reportedly being investigated by US officials. The Chinese lab — the Wuhan Institute of Virology — has denied the allegations.

“What we know is that the ground zero for this virus was within a few miles of that lab,” Navarro continued, adding that “If you simply do an Occam’s razor approach that the simplest explanation is probably the most likely, I think it’s incumbent on China to prove that it wasn’t that lab.”

The WH adviser also slammed China for using its “influence” at the World Health Organization (WHO) to “hide the virus from the world” during the early stages of the outbreak.

“This was a time where that virus could have been contained in Wuhan,” Navarro said. “Instead, 5 million Chinese people went out from Wuhan and propagated the virus around the world.”

President Donald Trump announced last week that the US would halt fundings to WHO, accusing the health group of failing to report accurate information from China during the early weeks of the pandemic.

Navarro added that during that time, China hoarded PPEs that it had imported. The actions left “people in New York, Milan, and everywhere in between defenseless when it came time to have that PPE.”

According to USA Today, US exports of surgical masks, ventilators and other protective gear to China surged in January and February.

Earlier this month, The Post reported that the Trump administration was contemplating legal action against China for allegedly trying to control the market on PPE.

Source: New York Post