US Judge Finds China Liable for Covid, Imposes $24 Billion Penalty

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey won a $24 billion judgment against China for the country’s part in exacerbating the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a landmark victory for Missouri and the United States in the fight to hold China accountable for unleashing COVID-19 on the world,” Bailey said in a statement.

“China refused to show up to court, but that doesn’t mean they get away with causing untold suffering and economic devastation. We intend to collect every penny by seizing Chinese-owned assets, including Missouri farmland.”

The lawsuit named the People’s Republic of China, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Academy of Science, and the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China as defendants.

The summary judgment from Judge Stephen Limbaugh of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri found that China intentionally “engaged in a campaign to suppress information about the existence, scope, and then human-to-human transmissibility, of COVID-19.”

It revealed that China was made aware of the human-to-human transmission of the virus as early as September 2019. The Chinese Communist Party publicly denied the existence of the COVID-19 virus until Dec. 31, 2019, and denied its ability to transmit between humans until Jan. 20, 2020.

“Evidence submitted by Missouri, however, demonstrates Missouri’s claim that China repeatedly and knowingly misrepresented the existence and human-to-human transmission of the virus for months prior to these admissions,” the summary judgment read.

China was also guilty of hoarding personal protection equipment.

“One of the key ways Defendants hoarded PPE early in the COVID-19 pandemic was by taking monopolistic steps to both nationalize U.S. factories producing PPE in China and prohibit the export of PPE from U.S. factories in China to the United States,” the summary judgment read.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Chinese and American officials have disputed the notion that COVID-19 originated in a lab. But in January, the CIA switched its view to conclude that COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy told the New York Times the lawsuit has “no basis in fact.”