In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping talks by video with patients and medical workers at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. China’s president visited the center of the global virus outbreak Tuesday as Italy began a sweeping nationwide travel ban and people worldwide braced for the possibility of recession. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP)

Media has been all atwitter over President Donald Trump calling the Wuhan coronavirus the “Chinese virus” and/or suggesting that doing so is somehow racist.

The ridiculousness of that as he and the United States are trying to address a pandemic can’t be overstated.

Recognizing that it originated in China isn’t racist.

But it’s amazing how the media is also completely skipping over and avoiding why it’s very important to recognize the origin of the virus.

China has been lying since at least December about the nature of the virus and that’s in part why it has been able to spread.

Here’s a WHO advisory from Jan. 14 trying to tell people that it couldn’t be transmitted between humans, according to China.

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

A Hong Kong protester had a far more accurate response:

Conducted by Chinese doctors! 🤔 Can’t really be trusted. Everyone should stay alert of this new virus.

— Jennifer HY Chan 🇭🇰⛱ (@JenniferHYChan) January 14, 2020

In fact, the Chinese government knew at that point to could be transmitted between humans and they had hundreds of cases even though they were reporting only 41 officially on Jan. 11, according to the South China Morning Post. Chinese doctors and labs had identified the virus at least by December and there are now reports that there may even have been cases in November.

But China tried to shut down the information from getting out.

From NY Post:

Chinese labs ID’d the new virus in December, but the regime ordered them to stop testing and quietly destroy their samples. Officials even squelched health care workers, like the late Dr. Li Wenliang, who tried to warn colleagues of the coming epidemic.

Li and others knew in December the virus was spreading through human contact. But the government publicly denied it until Jan. 20.

A Wuhan lab that identified COVID-19 as a highly contagious pathogen in late December was ordered by local officials to stop tests and destroy samples. Beijing is now scrambling to censor the story https://t.co/3a28zGcPXn

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) March 18, 2020

According to the New York Times, China also ignored the offers of help from the CDC and the WHO to send experts.

President Donald Trump shut down traffic from the affected areas of China at the end of January.

REMINDER:

In January when the CDC issued a travel notice for Wuhan, China and established a Coronavirus (COVID-19) Incident Management System, and @realDonaldTrump announced China travel restrictions, Democrats were singularly focused on their bogus impeachment witch hunt.

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 18, 2020

But the lies by China may have resulted in thousands more being infected and it becoming a pandemic. Now they’ve continued the lying, even claiming that the U.S. was the origin of the disease.

As my colleague Streiff noted, the water carrying for the Chinese by the WHO in this has not helped. Instead of highlighting the lies even after knowing they were lies, the Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for China’s response with regard to testing protocols and quarantines.

From Daily Caller:

“China has done many good things to slow down the virus,” Tedros said. “The whole world can judge. There is no spinning here.”

In addition to its apparent failure to press the Chinese government on the lack of cooperation and refusal to provide all available data, the WHO gave Beijing an assist in pushing back against American outlets — and even President Donald Trump — claiming that it was “racist” to comment about the virus’ origin.

DO – talk about the new #coronavirus disease (#COVID19)

DON'T – attach locations or ethnicity to the disease, this is not a “Wuhan Virus”, “Chinese Virus” or “Asian Virus”.
The official name for the disease was deliberately chosen to avoid stigmatizationhttps://t.co/yShiCMfYF3 pic.twitter.com/belHrq5HVo

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 2, 2020

Maybe if the WHO had been less concerned about what the virus was called and more concerned about transmitting accurate information as well as calling out China for their lies, the world would be in a better position now.