Former Vice President Mike Pence handed a comprehensive report from the Coronavirus Task Force to President Joe Biden.
It criticizes the Chinese regime for its negligence and lack of transparency, and also underscores the accomplishments related to the production of personal protective equipment and the speedy creation of a vaccine.
“As of the date of this report, the supply chain has been strengthened, testing is available to all who need it, innovative therapeutics have been developed that are daily saving lives, and safe and effective vaccines are being distributed and administered across the land,” reads the report’s outset.
“More than 400,000 of our fellow Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus, and although hospitalizations and mortality rates are in nationwide decline, the virus continues to exact a toll on lives and livelihoods,” reads the report. “But as we count that cost, it redoubles our determination to build on the progress we have made, and to restore this great nation and her people to health and to prosperity.”
The report says that China put out erroneous data, inculpating the World Health Organization as well.
“Little was known or understood about the novel virus,” one year ago, the report states, “and over the coming weeks China and the World Health Organization repeatedly disseminated incomplete and inaccurate health information that significantly obstructed the ability of the rest of the world to mount an informed response.”
The report also sets forth one of the harshest condemnations Pence has made so far. It says that China allowed the virus to spread around the world while Chinese officials were trying to curb the pandemic locally.
“Not only did China deliberately inhibit research and disclosure of essential information about the virus, but it also seeded the infection globally by facilitating international travel out of China, even as it imposed internal travel restrictions and hoarded PPE and medical supplies that would soon be urgently needed worldwide,” reads the report.
For at least three weeks, Beijing knew about the severity of the CCP virus outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, but downplayed the crisis and suppressed any information at odds with the official narrative that the virus was containable. This coverup allowed the virus to spread beyond China’s borders, sparking a global pandemic.
For the next 19 days, Chinese authorities insisted the disease was “preventable and controllable” and that there was little to no risk that it could spread among humans. The World Health Organization (WHO) echoed those statements.
Doctors who tried to warn others about the outbreak were punished for “rumor mongering.” On Dec. 30, Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at the Wuhan Central Hospital, shared a report about “seven ‘SARS-like” cases emerging from a local seafood market in a private chat group on the Chinese social media app WeChat. On Jan. 3, local police reprimanded him along with seven other medical professionals for spreading “rumors” online.
The Epoch Times published the first documentary on the origin of the CCP virus in April last year, which despite apparent suppression by the Google-owned Youtube algorithm, still reached significant viewership.
