Poll finds Americans, media differ on blame for virus

FPI / March 17, 2020

Because its negligence is largely responsible for the health crisis gripping the United States, China should pay some of the financial costs that have resulted from the spread of the coronavirus, a new poll said.

The Rasmussen Reports poll said 42 percent of likely U.S. voters favor China bearing some of the financial burden. 36 percent disagreed, and 22 percent are undecided.

Support is higher among Republicans, with 54 percent calling on China to “pay at least some of the world’s coronavirus bills,” said Rasmussen. Just 37 percent of both Democrats and voters not affiliated with either major political party agreed.

Many in the Rasmussen Reports poll also said that if China were to follow through on its threat to withhold key drugs it makes for American markets it should be considered "an act of war."

“Twenty-eight percent of voters here say that if China follows through with that threat, it should be considered an act of war. Forty-eight percent (48 percent) disagree, but 25 percent are not sure.”

Trump tweeted on Feb. 28: "So, the Coronavirus, which started in China and spread to various countries throughout the world, but very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY, is now being blamed, by the Do Nothing Democrats, to be the fault of “Trump”.

Meanwhile, a columnist noted that many in the U.S. corporate media are seemingly taking part in a Chinese propaganda effort aimed at convincing the world that China is not responsible for the coronavirus pandemic.

China's state-run propaganda outlets, with carefully distributed disinformation, portray China "as being the most proactive, intelligent, and responsible of the world superpowers," Becket Adams noted in a March 13 op-ed for the Washington Examiner. "And many in America's free press are happy to help China gaslight the entire world."

A New York Times article on Friday was headlined: “China Bought the West Time. The West Squandered It”.

On Thursday, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow hosted reporter Donald McNeil, who explained that China has had “enormous success in beating down its epidemic” because of its advancements in healthcare technology, testing, and mandatory quarantines.

Maddow thanked McNeil at the end of the segment for explaining so convincingly the “distance between” what China has done to fight COVID-19 and “what we’re preparing for.” Later, on social media, the Maddow show shared a clip of the segment with the headline “How coronavirus testing works in a country that takes the problem seriously.”

The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum asked on social media, “China has reacted to the outbreak of coronavirus in Italy by sending aid. The U.S. has reacted by suspending flights. Who is the superpower?”

Adams noted that the coronavirus has "spread to more than 120 countries, claiming more than 5,000 lives, precisely because of the Chinese government’s arrogance and incompetence. Chinese authorities knew about the virus in December of last year when it first appeared in the city of Wuhan. Instead of taking cautious measures and sharing what they knew about the disease with the rest of the world, China’s government engaged in a massive cover-up, hoping that maybe it would all just go away."

The communist government "suppressed the sharing of relevant information, arresting and punishing medical professionals who tried to warn people that there was something going around with SARS-like symptoms," Adams noted.

Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping later "had the gall to criticize the U.S. government after it imposed a temporary (and apparently prescient) travel ban on Chinese visitors. Xi seems to think that China can fool the world, and, based on the way Western journalists are reacting, he might be right," Adams wrote.

“This isn’t blanket praise for an authoritarian party-state,” Guardian columnist Bhaskar Sunkara said Thursday, “but thank God this pandemic started in a country with a strong state that took serious public health measures. Imagine if China was run by the GOP instead of the CCP.”

Actually, Adams pointed out, "that is exactly blanket praise for an authoritarian party-state. It's also a complete denial of reality. If this virus had emerged in the United States, it would have been reported on and taken seriously. Too bad it emerged in a country run by a secretive, authoritarian dictatorship."

MSNBC's Chuck Todd proclaimed: “How uncomfortable is it that perhaps China’s authoritarian ways did prevent this? Meaning, had China been a free and open society, this might have spread faster?”

Adams responded: "No, Chuck. China did not 'prevent' anything. Ask the Italians."

The truth, Adams noted, "is that China did absolutely everything wrong. One can only wonder what is motivating the Western journalists who pretend the contrary is true."

Free Press International