Trump says China could have stopped Covid-19 and suggests US will seek damages | World ... - 0 views
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“serious investigations”
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The US president had stopped giving press briefings after his advisers reportedly warned him that his marathon news conferences, including his widely-ridiculed comments about disinfectant as a possible treatment for Covid-19 – were hurting his re-election campaign.
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At the briefing Trump launched another forthright attack on China, saying there were “a lot of ways you can hold them accountable” for the pandemic.
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US criticism of China has intensified over the past week. Over the weekend Politico published details of a 57-page Republican party attack memo,
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After a series of controversial shipments, China’s government introduced strict rules last month which required all medical equipment and testing kits to be approved by the national medical products administration and registered before they were exported. However, after some suppliers reportedly complained it was too difficult to get the domestic license required, the rules were scaled back on the weekend, with exports now only needing to meet the importing country’s standard.
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“Germany is looking at things, we are looking at things,” he said. “We are talking about a lot more money than Germany’s talking about.” “We haven’t determined the final amount yet,” Trump said. “It’s very substantial.”
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China has reacted strongly, denying any coverup over the virus. An editorial in the state-backed Global Times on Monday said “China’s achievement in the fight against Covid-19 is way better than that of the US”.
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“This is a life-and-death matter, so it would spare no effort to smear China and mobilise all possible public opinion forces to do so to cover its selfishness.”
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Several countries on Tuesday began to ease lockdown restrictions, including New Zealand and Australia, which have both had significant success in controlling the virus. New Zealand moved down to level 3 restrictions on midnight on Monday, allowing some businesses to reopen.
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In other developments: More than 3,041,700 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19, according to the John Hopkins Tracker, and at least 211,167 have died. Argentina’s number of reported cases surpassed 4,000 on Monday, with 111 new cases bringing the total to 4,003 infected persons and 197 deaths so far. Japanese media reported that 300,000 coronavirus masks sent to pregnant women as part of a government handout have been found to be faulty. New Zealand has ended its strictest lockdown phase and entered Level 3, with 400,000 Kiwis returning to work, restaurants and cafes reopening for takeaway, and fishing, surfing and swimming now permitted. China has reported six new coronavirus cases (three domestic and three from overseas) and no deaths, according to the country’s National Health Commission. More than 2,200 Indonesians have died from Covid-19, but were not recorded, according to an investigation from Reuters. The official death toll from the virus in the country is 765. The director general of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said he is concerned about people missing vaccines for diseases such as polio and measles because of the coronavirus pandemic. Mexico’s president declared the country had “tamed” its coronavirus outbreak, despite widespread suspicions that Covid-19 cases are being undercounted. WhatsApp claims to have cut viral messages by 70% after introducing a limit on the number of people to whom users could forward messages. Afghanistan recorded its biggest one-day rise in cases, triggered by a continued surge of transmission in Kandahar. Sydney’s Bondi Beach has reopened again, after it was shut for being too crowded.