Concealed COVID-19 cases show US' guilty conscience

(File photo)

According to the latest COVID-19 statistics published by Johns Hopkins University, by August 4, global confirmed cases had surpassed 200 million with over 4.25 million deaths. The United States is still the country with the most confirmed cases and deaths, with more than 35,00 million confirmed cases and over 600,000 deaths so far.

Despite the dire pandemic situation domestically and internationally, some US politicians kept passing the buck irresponsibly. They politicized the virus origin, in order to distract domestic and international attention from suspicions that it is “the country that have failed to fight the pandemic” and " the country of virus origin”. The US blamed China and tarnished its image by continuously coercing and pressuring scientists, and even kidnapping the WHO to promote second-phrase origin tracing in China.

The virus continues raging as lies are flaring up all over the US. Michael McCaul, chief Republican member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, issued a report claiming sufficient evidence that “the coronavirus was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology before September, 2019”. What was ridiculous was that this report has neither any evidence nor any scientific common sense. It harped on lies to distract the global attention from the US' failure in fighting the pandemic and inquiries about its domestic virus origin. The whole thing is a complete joke.

However, lies and slander can create everything but diversion. On the contrary, the US has been hiding in plain sight because there have been many doubts and clues in the US concerning the source of the novel coronavirus. Therefore, while the US was throwing mud outside, it “cleaned up” inside through covering up and even deleting relevant data.

The Florida media outlets Palm Beach Post and Miami Herald have disclosed that the Florida Department of Health website showed that as early as January and February in 2020, over 171 patients had been tested positive or shown symptoms of coronavirus pneumonia. That means the novel coronavirus pandemic in the US can be traced back as early as January, 2020. At the meantime, US media reported that none of these patients had traveled to China, and 103 of them had never traveled abroad. This provided evidence that the accusations of “coronavirus origin” and “Wu Han Lab Leak Theory” against China made by the US government are nonsense and unfounded. What’s worse, it is inconceivable that the data of COVID-19 cases went unreported to the WHO but were deleted by US government officials on the evening of May 4, 2020.

On May 4, 2020, Miami Pioneer e-mailed the Florida Health Department to inquire for details of these 171 cases in order to report on the dire situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida. This mail had been taken “seriously with high attention” by the Florida government. Karina Blackmore, the department director of Disease Control and Health Protection of the State Health Department, ordered to delete the data of these 171 patients. After that, Rebecca Jones, who was previously responsible for the creation and maintenance of Florida pandemic data, had made objections to his supervisor Curry, saying that “this is a wrong decision”. Subsequently, Jones got suspended and fired. After the data was deleted, Blackmore found that the deletion caused the interruption of case number on the website. So, she requested to restore the deleted data.

Until today, Florida has not given the reason for deleting these data. According to local media, the deletion may be the outcome of manipulation by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis behind the scenes. In May 2020, the Trump administration was actively pursuing "reopening", and it was trying to distract attention from the surge of domestic confirmed cases by passing the blame to China and planting the virus origin in China. It is hard not to relate the deletion to Trump’s move.

The dismissed Jones has been interviewed by the media for many times. She revealed the dereliction of duty and irresponsibility of the US government in the prevention and control of the pandemic. According to the NPR, Jones founded her own COVID-19 information release system in June 2020. When she recalled the “May incident”, she said that a superior once asked her to modify the database to cut down the state's novel coronavirus-positive rate from 18% to 10%. "In my opinion, they seemed to make a plot. At that time, if I followed their requirements and got satisfying results that were in line with their expectation. As the fact went against what they expected, they seemed to get panicked and do whatever they can to achieve their scheme."

Such an ordinary American who was called a "whistleblower" by American media has been “investigated” by the US government. In December 2020, Reuters quoted Florida Law Enforcement Director Rick Swearingen as saying that law enforcement officers searched Jones’ residence on the ground that she was suspected of invading the communications system of the US Department of Health. Sarasota Herald Tribune once reported that Sending 12 armed men to seize Rebecca Jones' computer is no different from the Gestapo under an authoritarian dictator. However, this has happened on the land of the US.

When the US government attacked China over origin tracing, it falsely claimed that “the Chinese government is not transparent enough.” On the other hand, The US did not recognize that its early novel coronavirus cases had nothing to do with China, and even openly deleted the case data. What an opaque and dishonest performance! Perhaps US government officials believed that it cannot be transparent in terms of any truth of the pandemic origin or things encroaching “political interests” of a small number of politicians.

Data can be deleted, but the truth is hard to conceal. The US government must respond to global doubts about the virus' origin.

Contributed by Xi You

Translated by Wu You