Michael Caputo, the new spokesman for the US Department of Health and Human Services, deleted tweets in which he made racist and derogatory comments towards Chinese people.

The tweets - originally written on 12 March - were a response to conspiracy theories that the US brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, China.

Mr Caputo said "millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetiser and eat the ass out of anteaters," asked another user "Don't you have a bat to eat?" and called another person "Wang" for their presumed defence of China.

When CNN asked Mr Caputo about the tweets, he said he deletes his tweets every month, and said he didn't care about what he said.

In addition to making the racist comments about Chinese people, he also suggested that Democrats are hoping that millions of people die from the coronavirus and hope the economy tanks to hurt President Donald Trump's re-election chances.

"Coronavirus is the Democrats' new Russia, their new Ukraine. And nobody will believe them except their zombies. But know this: The Dems' strategy to defeat @realDonaldTrump requires 100s of thousands of American deaths. Will one of their nutjobs make it happen, a la Hodgkinson?"

The reference to "Hodgkinson" was a reference to James Hodgkinson, who shot House Majority Whip Representative Steve Scalise and four other people at a Republican baseball game in 2017.

Mr Caputo did not expand on how a single Democrat would use the coronavirus to kill hundreds of thousands of people.

The spokesman has also suggested that American reporters are "carrying water for the Chinese Communist Party" and implied MSNBC presenter Joe Scarborough was seditious.

Mr Caputo is a former adviser to former Russian president Boris Yeltsin and did PR work to improve the image of current Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Since returning to the US, Mr Caputo has worked as a Republican strategist.