Marco Rubio rips China for failing to share vital coronavirus information

Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, slammed Sunday the Communist Party of China for failing to share information about the coronavirus, placing “protecting their global image” ahead of containing the public-health emergency.

“The Communist Party of China is more interested in protecting their global image than they are in containing this. And that’s really the fundamental challenge here,” said Mr. Rubio on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

He said China’s lack of transparency has “really complicated” the global response to the coronavirus, which he described as “more evidence of what we’re dealing with when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party.”

“The way you deal with a global pandemic is you become transparent and you share information, beginning with the actual virus,” Mr. Rubio said. “You share the virus, because researchers around the world can start working on the basis of that and developing treatments and vaccines. They didn’t do that.”

He also said countries need to share best medical practices and infection numbers so “researchers again all over the world and other governments can take steps and measures to adjust to that. They didn’t do that.”

Today @vp told me the ⁦@CDCgov⁩ has been to #china “we we had CDC officials that were just in China a few short weeks ago, and they informed me that they were able to look at the raw data. it did line up with much of the data we were receiving.” ⁦@SundayFutures⁩ pic.twitter.com/ONGe18tZcU

— Maria Bartiromo (@MariaBartiromo) March 1, 2020

Vice President Mike Pence said that the coronavirus “originated there, and China’s been working to address the issue,” noting that the disease’s spread in China has slowed.

Does he believe those figures? “We had CDC officials that were just in China a few short weeks ago, and they informed me that they were able to look at the raw data, and from their initial look, it did line up with much of the data that we were receiving,” Mr. Pence said.

At the same time, he said, “we’ll continue to ask the hard questions, we’ll continue to call on China to even be more transparent than they’ve been.”

“But I think the president’s decision to suspend all travel outside of China and establish a quarantine for Americans who are returning here should tell you everything you need to know about our overall concern about what’s been happening in China,” Mr. Pence said.