China continues to hide & obfuscate COVID 19 data from world: Mike Pompeo

China continues to hide and obfuscate COVID-19 data from world, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, asserting that he has seen a significant amount of evidence suggesting that a laboratory in Chinese city of Wuhan was underperforming and virus could well have emanated from re.

"I have seen a significant amount of evidence that suggests that lab was underperforming, that re were security risks at lab and that virus could well have emanated from re," Pompeo told Ben Shapiro in an interview. "But I am happy to suspend decision about that. What we need are answers. re are still people dying," he said.

RE | WHO concedes 'Wuhan market h clear role in virus outbreak' as China agrees to probe

By Friday, more than 78,000 Americans h died and 13 lakh tested positive for coronavirus. Globally, more than 273,000 people have died and 39 lakh tested positive for disease. American ecomy and those of rest of world have come to a standstill.

"We have got an ecomy w that is really struggling and it is all a direct result of Chinese Communist Party covering up, hiding information, having doctors who wanted to tell story about where this began, how patient zero was formed and how it emanated from that person, and yet we cant get 0those answers," Pompeo said. "Even w, 120-plus days on from Chinese Communist Party kwing about this virus, y continue to hide and obfuscate data from American people and from world's best scientists," he said.

RE | China shows support for WHO-led inquiry into global COVID-19 respons

It is pretty astounding, Pompeo said, when asked if Chinese government is attempting to stymie any sort of investigation into what happened in ir country. "Wher it was Australians who simply said, 'Boy, we need an investigation,' ambassor re -- Chinese ambassor to Australia -- said, 'Well, we are going to threaten you ecomically.' We have seen m do same thing to EU, when y were about to put out a statement, began to put ecomic pressure on m," he said.

"This is worst of Chinese venturism. We have seen this. We have seen Chinese Communist Party do this before, threaten small countries, use ecomic power to exert ir influence," Pompeo said. "It is t how nations that want to truly be transparent, truly be part of international system -- it is t how y behave. I regret that y have done it because we still have an ongoing crisis. We still do t kw where this virus began or than to say we kw it came out of Wuhan," he said. 

RE | rth Korea's Kim Jong-un sends 'verbal mess' to China's Xi Jinping, but doubts persist

RE | On COVID-19, China eir me a terrible mistake or probably it was incompetence: Trump