Freedom Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group, and Buzz Photos, a Texas company that specialises in high school sports photography, have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Chinese government demanding $20 trillion in compensation for the damages caused by the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic, reports IANS.

In the lawsuit, the petitioners have allegedly accused the Chinese government of developing coronavirus as ‘an illegal biological weapon’ and for releasing the same “by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak originated,” the report stated.

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"Although it appears that the COVID-19 virus was released at an unplanned, unexpected time, it was prepared and stockpiled as a biological weapon to be used against China''s perceived enemies, including but not limited to the people of the US," the report quotes the complaint as saying.

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On March 23, US President Donald Trump said he is ‘a little upset’ with China over its late sharing of information on the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus and refusing to accept a visit by American medical experts to the country ‘out of pride’.

There are now 31,057 confirmed cases across the US, with 390 deaths. New York State, in particular New York City, emerged as the hotspot of one of the worst public health crisis in the US in recent memory. Nearly one in every two Americans infected by novel coronavirus are from New York City, which reported 5,085 news cases on March 23, taking the total to 20,875.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of conservative lawyer Larry Klayman, sought compensation from the Chinese government due to its "callous and reckless indifference and malicious acts". The Chinese people, the report quotes him as saying, "are a good people, but their government is not and it must be made to pay dearly".

Buzz Photos said in the lawsuit that it lost around $50,000 last weekend due to school closures and sports cancellations and has been forced to lay off workers.