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China, Already Accused of COVID-19 Coverup, Sent Faulty Medical Equipment to UK

Beijing has some more explaining to do.

As the world yearns for a look at the world after coronavirus, we are already beginning to ask ourselves some of the tougher questions:  When will a child’s birthday party be safe again?  Is a handshake still a proper greeting?  How many fans will be allowed at the ballpark when it reopens?

These are but a small fraction of the simple, pleasurable things that will need addressing once we are finally rid of this horrid curse.  There will also be difficult diplomatic work to be done, as we begin to understand just how this situation got so far out of hand.  It is in that discussion that China’s reaction to the outbreak, which began in Wuhan, will be examined extremely closely.

Not only are many experts expressing concerns that China obscured the severity of the illness from the onset, but now Being is being accused of sending junk medical equipment out for the rest of the unsuspecting world to use.

Britain has become the latest country to cry foul about the quality of China’s coronavirus test kits and equipment after the ones the country purchased were deemed too unreliable.

Since the outbreak began, China has been accused of multiple cover-ups and deliberately lying about its coronavirus infection and death rates. Beijing has tried to rebrand itself on the international stage as a leader in tackling the virus but the drumbeat of complaints has been getting louder in recent days and the faulty kits, delivered to the likes of Britain, Spain and the Netherlands, is only exacerbating the problem.

In a blog post on Monday, John Bell, the coordinator of coronavirus testing for Public Health England, said that none of England’s 17 million antibody kits — including the ones bought from China — have performed well.

“We see many false negatives and we also see false positives,” he wrote. “…This is not a good result for test suppliers or for us.”

And it gets even worse:

Last week, the Netherlands joined Spain, Turkey, Georgia and the Czech Republic in their concerns over masks and test kits. The claims of faulty test kits and other devices came as the number of COVID-19 cases continued to surge in the United States and Europe.

Spain had to return 50,000 quick-testing kits to China after discovering they weren’t working properly. The Netherlands also rejected China-made coronavirus testing kits and protective gear, calling them substandard and questioning the quality of supplies Beijing is selling — at marked-up prices — to the world.

When the dust finally settles on COVID-19, the Chinese government could find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of an angry and battered rest of the world.

 

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