The United Kingdom's Prime Minister tested positive for Coronavirus late last month, was hospitalized over the weekend, then was transferred to an intensive care unit early this week after his symptoms worsened. He has been sickened by a highly-transmissible virus that originated in China, whose government lied, suppressed data and covered up crucial information over the course of critical early weeks -- leading to a global pandemic -- and their deceit persists to this day. With that as a backdrop, the British government is demanding a refund after becoming the latest victim of defective anti-Coronavirus medical supplies:
"The UK government’s new testing chief has admitted that none of the 3.5 million antibody tests ordered from China are fit for widespread use...The tests did not pass the evaluation stage". https://t.co/AxqFupLpGz #COVID19
— Wilson Leung ??? ???? (@WilsonLeungWS) April 6, 2020
The British government will seek refunds for millions of coronavirus test kits purchased from China, after a study of the products found them to be unreliable for use with most patients. Professor John Bell, coordinator of coronavirus testing for Public Health England, said Monday that the antibody tests are not reliable when used on any patients who do not qualify as severely ill—i.e. most people being tested. In a blog post, the University of Oxford academic explained: “Sadly, the tests we have looked at to date have not performed well.” He added, “We see many false negatives and we also see false positives…This is not a good result for test suppliers or for us.” The British government ordered 3.5 million of the antibody tests, largely from China, last month
As we've mentioned previously, this debacle comes amid similar stories playing out around the globe:
Meanwhile, the Netherlands joined Spain, Turkey, Georgia and the Czech Republic in rejecting China-made medical gear, claiming the items were substandard and questioning their quality as the number of global coronavirus cases passes 826,000, according to Fox News. The Dutch health ministry said over the weekend that it had to recall 600,000 masks shipped from China on March 21 because they were faulty.
And this is an especially nasty piece of turnabout from the Chinese Communist Party:
NEW: A senior admin official tells me that China forced Italy to buy back the same PPE they had donated to China at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak
— Amber Athey (@amber_athey) April 4, 2020
"China then has sent Italian PPE back to Italy … and charged them for it," the official said.https://t.co/Skeyhffjv3
China's efforts to rebrand itself as a global leader focused on humanitarian relief amid the coronavirus outbreak has hit a major snag and perhaps revealed Beijing's true intentions behind their public relations blitz. After telling the world that it would donate masks, face guards and testing equipment to Italy, China quietly backtracked and sold the Mediterranean country desperately-needed medical equipment, according to a report. What's worse is that the personal protective equipment (PPE) China forced Italy to buy was actually the same PPE Italy donated to China before coronavirus rushed its own shores and killed nearly 16,000 people.
Astoundingly, many in the Western press have been regurgitating Chinese propaganda for weeks, swallowing hole their bogus public relations stunts. And for unfathomably myopic reasons, outlets that routinely fact check President Trump on a granular level continue to report "official" Chinese Coronavirus statistics in blaring headlines and tweets, some of which seem explicitly designed to cast America in an unfavorable comparative light. Keep in mind that they're doing this within days of the US intelligence community (briefly extolled by journalists as the most reliable patriots on earth, when it suited a separate Trump-related narrative) assessing that Beijing is fabricating their numbers:
U.S. reports 1,264 coronavirus deaths in over 24 hours.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 7, 2020
Meanwhile in China, where the pandemic broke out, not a single new coronavirus death was reported. https://t.co/ooXkR9X2L5
#BREAKING China reports no new #coronavirus deaths for the first time pic.twitter.com/acYkydDuNh
— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 7, 2020
Finally, in case you missed it, many of the usual suspects expressed rote outrage when President Trump asked a foreign reporter if she worked for China. She looked Asian, so this was casual racism, they claimed. In fact, it was her lengthy propagandistic preamble to her 'question' that seemed to raise Trump's suspicions -- which turned out to be justified. The exchange:
Only last week, there were multiple flights coming from China full of medical supplies," the reporter from Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV began during Monday's briefing. "Companies like Huawei and Alibaba have been donating to the United States, like 1.5 million N95 masks and also a lot of medical gloves, and much more medical supplies." "Sounds like a statement more than a question," Trump interjected. The reporter then asked if Trump was willing to work "directly" with China; Trump responded that China should honor its trade deals with the United States. "Are you cooperating with China?" she pressed. "Who are you working for, China?" Trump responded. "Who are you with?" The reporter smiled. "Um, no, I'm working for -- Hong Kong Phoenix TV." "Who owns that? China?" Trump asked. "It's based in Hong Kong. ... It's a privately owned company."
Within minutes of the exchange in the briefing room, consultant Elliot Schwartz flagged that in 2018, a former Phoenix TV news director testified as part of an FCC filing that the outlet is essentially controlled by China's Communist Propaganda Department, and follows a directive to not report positively on the United States...And, The Daily Caller's Chuck Ross found that the Hoover Institution has said it considers Phoenix TV a "quasi-official" broadcaster with "links to the PRC’s Ministry of State Security."..."Moreover, over the past two years, it has been used as an outlet for airing televised confessions by various detained CCP [Communist Party of China] critics, most notably all five Hong Kong booksellers abducted by Chinese security forces in late 2015," the report continued. "Such coverage is perhaps not coincidental, considering that CCTV [China Central Television] reportedly holds a 10 percent stake in Phoenix."
I'll leave you with a friendly reminder to our domestic press: China recently expelled American journalists in the middle of the Coronavirus outbreak, about which China continues to lie shamelessly. Try to act accordingly, even if it feels like you're siding with the Trump administration over a totalitarian Communist regime -- difficult as that may be for some. Also, question: Might the Brits reconsider their relationship with Beijing on critical national security matters, in light of this scandalous fiasco?
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