Washington should stop spreading 'political virus' in global pandemic fight

The US leader has once again fired ill-founded accusation against China over the COVID-19 pandemic in his pre-recorded speech broadcast at the general debate of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

By spreading "political virus" in front of the international community, he has abused and tarnished the UN's sacred rostrum that is used to promote global cooperation and the welfare of all.

The US leader's baseless finger-pointing has nothing new to offer. In fact, since the start of the outbreak, some Washington politicians have repeatedly tried to tap xenophobic terms to smear China over transparency and the origin of the pathogen.

While the US leader tried time and again to shift the blame of his disastrous handling of the pandemic to China, his country has hit another grim milestone in the deaths from the virus. According to the data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, US COVID-19 deaths surpassed 200,000 on Tuesday while the number of infections has reached more than 6.8 million.

Despite being criticized by many inside the United States and around the world for its outbreak response, it seems that Washington still refuses to do some serious soul-searching. However, politicians in Washington should know that their brazen lies will fool no sober minds.

For the records, the Chinese government has since the outbreak taken rigorous measures to contain the disease, and conducted extensive international cooperation by sharing timely information with other countries, supporting the World Health Organization in coordinating a global anti-pandemic fight, and sending medical experts and the much-needed materials to many parts of the world.

Spreading "political virus" will in no way slow down the raging pandemic in the United States, and will only undermine the world's collective drive to bear down on this previously unknown virus.

What is comforting is that the international community has seen an ever expanding global consensus that the virus is humanity's common enemy, and cooperation is the most powerful weapon to beat this enemy.

Those Washington politicians who seek to manipulate facts and use the pandemic to stir up division, and score cheap political gains will never succeed.