Missouri Sues China Over COVID-19 Pandemic | Eastern NC Now

Publisher's note: The author of this post is Mitch Kokai for the John Locke Foundation.

    Collin Anderson writes for the Washington Free Beacon about one American state that's taking communist China to court because of COVID-19.

    Missouri attorney general Eric Schmitt is "confident" he will secure damages from the Chinese government for its responsibility in unleashing the coronavirus pandemic.

• While congressional Republicans have floated legislation to allow American citizens to sue China for mishandling the coronavirus, Schmitt on Tuesday made Missouri the first state to file a lawsuit against the communist nation. The suit says the Chinese government must be held liable for the "enormous loss of life, human suffering, and economic turmoil" brought on by the deadly disease. Schmitt estimates that the virus has caused tens of billions of dollars in economic damage in the Show-Me State alone.
• "The fact is, by the cover-up, by the deception, by the lies, by the silencing of whistleblowers, by the hoarding of protective equipment, by not informing the world about how deadly the virus would be, a pandemic was unleashed on the world," Schmitt said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. "All of that certainly points to the Chinese government for its malfeasance, and we want to hold them accountable for that."
• Schmitt's lawsuit identifies multiple defendants, including the Chinese Communist Party, the nation's health and emergency ministries, provincial and city governments in Hubei and Wuhan, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a superlab which some U.S. officials suspect played a role in the outbreak. The suit outlines an array of facts highlighting China's abuses in the early stages of the outbreak that resulted in an "unnecessary and preventable" pandemic. ...
• ... The Republican AG expressed confidence in the suit's legal merit, saying he expects other states to launch similar efforts in the near future.

    Follow Carolina Journal Online's continuing coverage of N.C. impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic HERE.