New report claims coronavirus outbreak could have been reduced by 95 percent if China acted sooner
President Trump says the world is paying the price for China's cover-up; reaction on 'The Five.'
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"The Five" hosts praised President Trump on Thursday after he sought to refocus blame on China for its failure to contain the coronavirus before it morphed into a global pandemic -- pushing back on propaganda efforts by the Communist Chinese government to blame the U.S.
"If we don't hold China accountable for this now, you know it's going to happen again -- and it could be worse next time," co-host Dana Perino said.
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"If we don't hold China accountable for this now, you know it's going to happen again -- and it could be worse next time."
Trump has ramped up his targeting of the Chinese government since it began an effort to try and pass the blame onto the U.S. by propagating conspiracy theories online. Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian wrote on Twitter last week: “When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals?" and suggested that it “might be [the] US [sic] army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan."
Trump said the virus "could have been contained to that one area in China where it started," and added that "certainly, the world is paying a big price for what they did."
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Co-host Jesse Watters outlined China's lack of transparency and cover-up attempts surrounding the outbreak, which reports indicate began as early as this past November.
"The first case of coronavirus surfaced in mid-November, that's four months ago. And when the scientists identified the virus, the Chinese government told them to destroy the samples and they gaged the scientists and told them to lie about it," he began.
"Then, they allow these wet markets where the contamination started to remain open, told the World Health Organization that it was not contagious human-to-human, they allowed the New Year's celebration in Wuhan [attended by] 11 million people to go on ... and that was a colossal mistake," Watters went on.
Once the virus was already discovered, the Chinese government allowed thousands of citizens to fly all over the country and the world, Watters explained, emphasizing that Beijing had "dragged its feet in releasing data to the rest of the world" on their medical findings.
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"So," he concluded, "when they say the U.S. military were the ones that planted the virus in Wuhan and we are going to withhold drugs from the United States during the pandemic, that's just crazy and the fact that the president calls it the Chinese virus, he just wants to make sure that there is a little bit of accountability and truth to what happened."
Co-host Juan Williams called for a "9/11 commision-style review" to get to the bottom of where the novel virus originated, but Greg Gutfeld said the government's focus should be on the health and wellness of the American people until the virus is contained.
"We need to turn our focus away from blaming people and make a list of the people who need to pay ... and six months from now we go back and look at the list," Gutfeld explained.
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"Right now, I want to get people well, I want to find the treatment and do all the good stuff ... and screw the Chinese government, we will deal with them later."
A day earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned on "Hannity" that the pandemic could be "repeatable" if China persists with what he called their "disinformation campaign."
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
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