Donald Trump says world paying 'big price' for China's cover-up on coronavirus

US President Donald Trump launched a scathing attack on China and said the world is paying a “very big price” for covering-up the facts on coronavirus. During a press briefing along with the members of White House Coronavirus Task Force, Trump said that if the threats of the virus would have been made public at an earlier stage, the virus could have been contained to the area where it started.

The blame game between the US and China over the coronavirus outbreak has not stopped and the White House National Security Council put out a tweet on March 19 criticising Beijing. It accused China of suppressing the initial reports of the coronavirus outbreak and its severity which caused Chinese and international experts to miss critical opportunities to prevent a pandemic.

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Trump boasted about the early travel ban on China and accused media houses of terming the pro-activeness as a racist act. Speaking to the reporters at the White House, the US President said that many people present in the room called him racist because he acted at the earliest. He said that had he let “these tens of thousands of people” come in from China, the deaths would have been much more than the current toll.

“So when you say that I wasn’t prepared, I was the first one to do the ban. Now other countries are following what I did. But the media doesn’t acknowledge that,” said Trump.

Read: Cuomo Emerges As Democratic Counter To Trump Virus Response

'Chinese Virus' controversy

The US President has often called COVID-19 as “Chinese Virus” which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has explicitly advised against it. While China has slammed Trump and other US officials for referring the virus as “Chinese Virus” or “Wuhan Virus”, the US President has been trying to justify the term.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also lashed out at Trump for stigmatising a race and a particular community saying the US President doesn’t need to incite a backlash against the already suffering Asian-American communities.

Read: Donald Trump Calls Off June G-7 Meeting Because Of Coronavirus

Read: 'It's Not Racist At All': Donald Trump Defends His 'Chinese Virus' Remark