Rumormongering by Fox News reveals desperate situation of US: China Daily editorial

Despite epidemiologists and virologists around the world agreeing that the novel coronavirus has its origin in nature — based on their respective research — Fox News is pushing the conspiracy theory that the novel coronavirus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

After the US administration started brazenly calling it the "Chinese virus" in the middle of last month, the news network seized on this as a rich new vein to exploit for its China-bashing.

It is the worsening situation at home that has prompted the administration's default television mouthpiece to engage in the sort of rumormongering usually found in the more far-flung regions of cyberspace.

While China has seen a rise and fall in both infections and deaths in the space of two months, without the usual plateau and with a low peak — which are both attributable to the actions the country took to restrict the transmission of the virus — the US is experiencing a long plateau with a high number of deaths and infections. The rate of daily infections in the US is more than 10 times the peak level in China, and has lasted for weeks without showing any signs of ebbing.

With the US administration being berated at home for its response to the pandemic, it has opened two new fronts, trying to blacken China and to whitewash itself.

While still combating the virus at home, now with the focus on imported infections, China too has opened two new fronts — reviving the economy and assisting other countries in their battles against the virus. That includes extending a helping hand to the US.

True, as the White House boasted late last week, the number of deaths per 100,000 people in the US is only half or one-third that of some other developed countries. But with only 4.54 percent of the world's population, the US now accounts for one-third of the people infected with the virus worldwide, and one-fourth of all the virus-caused deaths.

American lives will not be saved by peddling rumors. That the US administration has latched onto the conspiracy theory as a way to deflect from its own failings merely highlights its own desperation.

Fox News may be able to fool some of the people some of the time with such false and malicious tatting, but the rising death toll in the US only makes its use and intent more conspicuous.

With regard to the origin of the virus, it is not yet clear who was infection one. But it is known that it originated in wild animals. The US should stick to the facts, one of which is: It is the virus that is the enemy, not China.