Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is calling on Republicans to hold Chinese President Xi Jinping accountable as COVID cases may soon spread rapidly across the globe due to the country dropping its health precautions.
Speaking to radio host John Catsimatidis on Sunday, Pompeo said “millions more” around the world may soon be infected because Chinese residents are able to travel freely now. He warned we could begin seeing images similar to those from Italy in the early stages of the pandemic.
“You remember those pictures from Milan when the hospitals were full, and the morgues were full. We are about to do the same thing again … It sounds like we might have as many as a million — a million, John — a million Chinese people infected,” Pompeo said.
“Fifty percent of their population traveling. There is no reason we should allow the Chinese to do this again, to send Chinese-infected persons around the world knowingly infecting people all across the globe,” he added.
With restrictions on the population lifted and the country now experiencing an estimated 1 million cases daily, Pompeo urged the U.S. and other governments to stop Xi from letting Chinese citizens spread the virus around the world.
Nearly half of passengers on two recent flights from China to Milan were COVID positive, Bloomberg reports.
“Xi got away with this once. I regret that he wasn’t held accountable,” Pompeo said. “He hasn’t been held accountable. We should still do that for the 6 million people who died between the spring of 2020 and today. But he’s doing it again.
“Just as in the spring of 2020 he sent people around the world who he knew were infected, he’s doing the same darn thing again,” Pompeo continued. “He’s going to infect millions more. We shouldn’t let that happen.”
In a Twitter thread, Pompeo called on House Republicans to hold Xi and the Chinese Communist Party responsible if the Biden administration won’t.
Ever since my time in the Trump Administration, we have known that dangerous, gain-of-function research was being done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And we knew the Wuhan lab was not equipped to handle that research safely or securely. (2/6)
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) January 2, 2023
By Spring 2020, what could have been a contained outbreak had turned into a global pandemic. But the CCP continued to keep the world in the dark. In my book, Never Give an Inch, I recount how hard the CCP worked to squander any efforts to investigate COVID’s origins. (4/6)
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) January 2, 2023
The American people deserve answers. If the Biden Administration won’t hold Xi and the CCP accountable, then House Republicans need to make it a priority. (6/6)
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) January 2, 2023
The United States announced at the end of December that individuals traveling to the U.S. from China must present a negative COVID test. That requirement will begin Jan. 5.