A senator has been called racist for comments about China, saying they have a “culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that.”

Senator John Cornyn from Texas mentioned other recent viruses in his remarks while talking about Covid-19, blaming them all on China.

‘These viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that’s why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine flu, and now the coronavirus, so I think they have a fundamental problem,” he said.

When reporters asked Mr Cornyn about concerns of racism, he replied that he didn’t believe he was being racist.

“We’re not talking about Asians. We’re talking about China, where these viruses emanate from and created this pandemic,” he said.

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The chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Representative Judy Chu said Mr Cornyn's remarks were disgusting.

“Disparaging an entire ethnic group and culture like this is bigotry, plain and simple,” said Ms Chu. “Blaming Chinese people en masse for the spread of this disease is the exact same bigoted line that was used to justify the Chinese Exclusion Act over a century ago.”

Mr Cornyn was also widely criticised online, with Berkeley professor Robert Reich tweeting: “Just so we’re all clear: In the middle of a global pandemic, a sitting senator is scapegoating an entire country and peddling racist lies that could very well lead to hate crimes. Unseat John Cornyn in November.”

Twitter user @Joshuarush tweeted that Mr Cornyn should look closer to home for his comparisons.

“Hi, from texas here. i know texans who have willingly and proudly eaten roadkill rattlesnake. john cornyn has no moral high ground, but neither does the entire republican party :/.”

President Trump was asked on Wednesday why he refers to coronavirus as the "chinese virus," with the 73-year-old also dismissing claims of racism.

"Why do you keep calling this the "Chinese virus" -- a lot of people say it's racist," a reporter asked him.

"Because it comes from China, it's not racist at all. It comes from China. I want to be accurate," he replied.​

According to the Covid Tracking Project at their last update, 82,571 had been tested so far in the US.

Their data shows that there have been 1,907 tests in Texas so far, with 83 positive and 1,907 negative.

More than 10,000 cases of the disease have been recorded so far in the US, and 157 deaths.