Missouri sues China, CCP and Wuhan Public Health over COVID, their ‘deceit’ and coverup
The Attorney-General of Missouri has issued proceedings for damages against the “People’s Republic” of China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Wuhan Public Health Commission and numerous other entities for their “deceit” in covering up the coronavirus outbreak and willfully allowing it to spread worldwide.
Conceptually, the “People’s Republic” of China is not entitled to sovereign immunity; therefore, the legal team will press the courts to not dismiss the suit easily, but will likely fail victim by amicus curiae briefs from Communist professors.
Imagine de Olga Lionart de la Pixabay
The key factual allegations are that in the critical weeks between December 2019 and January 23, 2020, the Chinese Government engaged in misrepresentations, concealment, and retaliation to conceal the gravity of the outbreak from the rest of the world, by –
1. Denying the risk of human-to-human transmission. The first known case of human-to-human transmission occurred in early December [actually November 17]. By late December, Chinese health officials had plenty of evidence of human-to-human transmission. On December 30, Chinese doctors at Wuhan hospitals posted on social media that they were observing human-to-human transmission. Until January 20, Chinese officials continued to insist that there was no evidence of human transmission, denying solid evidence to the contrary. Additionally, Chinese officials failed to report the potential for human-to-human transmission to the World Health Organization for weeks.
2. Silencing whistleblowers. From January 1-3, 2020, Chinese officials arrested eight doctors and forcibly silenced them as “rumor-mongers”—an action that was broadcast on state media, likely to deter others from speaking out. One doctor at a Wuhan emergency room was disciplined when she told her staff to wear masks when dealing with patients, fearing human-to-human transmission. Additionally, there were reports of journalists covering the outbreak who disappeared.
3. Failing to contain the outbreak. While denying human-to-human transmission, Chinese officials took little to no steps to contain the outbreak. By January 13, the Chinese government was aware of spread to Thailand. For the next week, they began treating COVID-19 as a serious and contagious virus without advising the public. During that time, millions of people traveled through Wuhan, and many thousands were infected, making a worldwide outbreak almost inevitable. A potluck event for 40,000 people went forward in Wuhan on January 16. The Chinese government took no serious steps to contain the outbreak until January 23, when it was far too late.
4. Hoarding personal protective equipment. Reports indicate that Chinese officials, while they were concealing the outbreak, began hoarding quality personal protective equipment while permitting only defective PPE to be exported to the rest of the world. This hoarding endangered the lives of health care workers and first responders in other countries.
The academic community in the United States maintain that the lawsuit should be dismissed on the ground that China is a “sovereign state” and is accordingly entitled to sovereign immunity from civil suit or criminal prosecution under the Federal Sovereign Immunity Act (28 U.S. Code 1604 et seq.).
Note; however, Missouri’s claim is for pecuniary damages. Though the Act, at §1604, grants foreign states immunity from the jurisdiction of the United States courts, at §1605 there is a relevant exception:
“A foreign state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of the States in any case (5) … in which monetary damages are sought against a foreign state for personal injury or death, or damage to or loss of property, occurring in the United States and caused by the tortious act or omission of that foreign state or of any official or employee of that foreign state while acting within the scope of his office or employment; except that this paragraph shall not apply to … any claim based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function regardless of whether the discretion be abused …”.
Were the Chinese exercising a “discretionary function” in failing to notify the world timeously? No, they were not. The International Health Regulations (2005) are an instrument of international law legally binding upon signatory states, which include Communist China as well as the United States. Article 6 (Notifications) says –
“… Each State Party shall notify WHO, by the most efficient means of communication available, by way of the national IHR focal point, and within 24 hours of assessment of public health information, of all events which may constitute a public health emergency of international concern within its territory … Following a notification, a State Party shall continue to communicate to WHO timely, accurate and sufficiently detailed public health information available to it on the notified event, where possible including case definitions, laboratory results, source and type of the risk, number of cases and deaths, conditions affecting the spread of the disease and the health measures emploiyed; and report, when necessary, the difficulties faced and support needed in responding to the potential public health emergency of international concern.”
China was bound by, but did not comply with, Article 6, in that, inter alia –
a) it did not report the outbreak as soon as it was aware of a new and dangerous pathogen;
b) it falsely stated that person-to-person transmission had not been evidenced long after internal documents prove it knew the infection was thus transmissible;
c) it has continued to fail to comply with the obligation to report cases and deaths accurately (it is currently concealing outbreaks in Heiliongjiang province and in Peking, and yet has not reported any deaths for more than a week);
d) it ordered all original data samples to be destroyed, and swore all with knowledge of the original outbreak to secrecy (again, the original documents of the regime establish this fact);
e) it has not allowed international virologists access to the original data or samples, greatly hindering their efforts to find vaccines and antibody tests;
f) it delayed a WHO mission to Wuhan, the source of the outbreak, for approximately 10 days while evidence both at the Wuhan P4 laboratory that may have been the source of the outbreak and at the Huanan Seafood Market that the Chinese say was its source was destroyed.
The second defendant in the action is the Chinese Communist Party. Communist professors are already parroting the line that “the Chinese Communist Party is the State”
