Left-wing billionaire Bill Gates attacked the United States during a CNN interview on Sunday while praising communist China, claiming that China “did a lot of things right at the beginning” of the coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan.

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked Gates: “How would you respond to the charge that the Chinese covered this up, they essentially deceived the rest of the world, and as a result, they should be held in someway responsible for this?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s a timely thing because it doesn’t affect how we act today,” Gates claimed. “China did a lot of things right at the beginning. Like any country where a virus first shows up, they can look back and see where they missed some things.”

China has falsely claimed that the coronavirus came from the United States Army; tried to cover it up by silencing doctors and journalists who were trying to warn the world; told the world that there was not evidence the coronavirus could be transmitted person to person when they knew for a fact that it could; intentionally lied about how bad the outbreak was and tried to cover up deaths; and is allegedly continuing to withhold critical information about the outbreak.

China’s dishonesty has been so brazen that its own allies have called out the communist nation.

“Some countries did respond very quickly and get their testing in place and they avoided the incredible economic pain, and its sad that even the U.S., that you would have expected to do this well, did it particularly poorly,” Gates claimed.

China’s economy has been devastated by the outbreak, as have many of the world’s leading economies.

“That’s a distraction,” Gates claimed about criticisms of China.

WATCH:

Bill Gates claims that criticisms of how China lied and covered up the coronavirus is a “distraction”: “China did a lot of things right at the beginning … they avoided the incredible economic pain … I think there’s a lot of incorrect and unfair things said” This is all a lie pic.twitter.com/RlbwV0fUcA — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 26, 2020

Gates’ remarks were immediately picked up and promoted by Chinese state propagandists.

Chinese state propagandists promoting @BillGates defense of the Chinese government. https://t.co/EvqXJuwvfw — Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) April 26, 2020

China has also admitted to falsely reporting numbers about pandemics that have started in their country, like the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.

The Atlantic reported:

The evidence of China’s deliberate cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan is a matter of public record. In suppressing information about the virus, doing little to contain it, and allowing it to spread unchecked in the crucial early days and weeks, the regime imperiled not only its own country and its own citizens but also the more than 100 nations now facing their own potentially devastating outbreaks. More perniciously, the Chinese government censored and detained those brave doctors and whistleblowers who attempted to sound the alarm and warn their fellow citizens when they understood the gravity of what was to come. Some American commentators and Democratic politicians are aghast at Donald Trump and Republicans for referring to the pandemic as the “Wuhan virus” and repeatedly pointing to China as the source of the pandemic. In naming the disease COVID-19, the World Health Organization specifically avoided mentioning Wuhan. Yet in de-emphasizing where the epidemic began (something China has been aggressively pushing for), we run the risk of obscuring Beijing’s role in letting the disease spread beyond its borders. China has a history of mishandling outbreaks, including SARS in 2002 and 2003. But Chinese leaders’ negligence in December and January—for well over a month after the first outbreak in Wuhan—far surpasses those bungled responses. The end of last year was the time for authorities to act, and, as Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times has noted, “act decisively they did—not against the virus, but against whistle-blowers who were trying to call attention to the public health threat.”

Studies have reportedly shown that had China taken action earlier, the outbreak could have been reduced by 95% and could have been regionally contained.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) claimed on Sunday that he believes that China allowed international flights to continue out of China during the outbreak because the Chinese government knew that it was going to devastate their economy, and they didn’t want the rest of the world, in particular the United States, passing them by while they suffered severe economic damage.

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