Bipartisan resolution condemns China’s handling of coronavirus outbreak

A group of House lawmakers led by Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) have offered a resolution condemning the Chinese government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

The bipartisan resolution, on which Moulton is currently the only Democratic signatory, accuses regional health and security authorities in China’s Hubei province and elsewhere in the country of tamping down on efforts by scientists to study the disease early on and publish information publicly about its effects.

Banks and Moulton’s resolution also condemns alleged acts of censorship perpetrated by Chinese authorities against doctors and other health authorities and calls for the Chinese government to publicly repudiate rumors that the virus was spread by the U.S. military or that it originated outside of China.

Nearly two dozen other Republicans have signed on to the resolution. Some conservatives have called for the Chinese government to face international consequences over news reports indicating that doctors and others were censored by China’s government and ordered to stop spreading “rumors” about the disease in early 2020 and late 2019.

China saw the majority of the early cases of coronavirus as well as the first major wave of deaths caused by the disease. The disease is now hitting hardest in European countries such as Italy and Spain while the number of cases in the U.S. continues to rise as well.

There have been 81,000 cases confirmed in China, more than anywhere else in the world.