Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien deplores China virus cover-up

In comments at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday in the US, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien described China’s response to the new coronavirus as a cover up, saying Beijing's response had cost the international community months that could have been used to prepare for the coronavirus, The Hill reports.

“Unfortunately, rather than use best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up,” O’Brien said Wednesday. “There’s lots of open source reporting from Chinese nationals that the doctors involved were either silenced or put in isolation … so the word of this virus could not get out.”

“This virus did not originate in the United States. It originated in the Wuhan, in the Hubei province in China,” O’Brien said.  “It originated some time ago. Unfortunately, rather than using best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up.”

In the meantime, several Republican lawmakers have referred to the illness as the "Chinese virus" or the "Wuhan virus."  

O’Brien, who is President Donald Trump’s top adviser on foreign affairs and national security matters, said the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could have assisted China in early containment and treatment before the outbreak. He said:

"It probably cost the world community two months to respond. And in those two months, if we had those and had the cooperation of the Chinese, and a WHO team been on the ground and a CDC team—which we had offered them on the ground—I think we could have dramatically curtailed what happened in China and what is now happening across the world."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield has pushed back against that characterization, as has representative Grace Meng a Democrat, the vice chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. She said such terminology only "reinforces the disparaging and negative stereotypes of Asian Americans.”-Photo: The Heritage Foundation