White House bashes VoA for a revealing graphic

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci (L) listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, Washington, D.C., April 10, 2020. /AP

**Editor's Note: **The article first appeared in Beijing Daily on April 11, 2020. It doesn't necessarily reflect the views of CGTN.

Voice of America (VoA), a media organization that promotes pro-American views, was unexpectedly bashed by the White House.

On April 10, the White House released a statement on its official website, criticizing VoA for not "tell[ing] America's story" but amplifying the Chinese and Iranian propagandas with American taxpayers' money.

What is this all about?

The White House attacked VoA for spending about 200 million U.S. dollars of taxpayers' money each year to "speak for America's adversaries – not its citizens" and even listed a summary of evidence.

Screenshot of the White House website shows that on April 10 it released a statement criticizing VoA for not telling America's story but amplifying Chinese and Iranian propaganda with American taxpayers' money.

For example, VoA called China's Wuhan lockdown a successful "model" copied by much of the world, and then tweeted out a video of the celebratory light show marking the end of Wuhan's lockdown.

What vexed the White House most is the graphic posted by VoA to compare China's coronavirus death toll with America's, saying "U.S. Virus Death Toll Exceeds Official China Tally."

The White House lashed out at VoA for creating graphics with Chinese government statistics to compare the two countries' death tolls. It even quoted a so-called intelligence expert, claiming that the accuracy of China's numbers was not verified, for which they cannot provide any valid evidence.

How is it possible that a simple graphic has set the White House ablaze? Is it true, as is claimed, that the Chinese statistics used by VoA were problematic?

It is not as simple as it looks. In fact, before VoA publicized the graphic, Johns Hopkins University's statistics released at 4:55 A.M. Beijing Time on April 1 showed that the U.S. had recorded 184,183 confirmed cases and 3,721 deaths, and the U.S. death toll had already surpassed China's, which stood at 3,305.

Death toll of COVID-19 in the U.S. and China on VoA's graphic, March 31, 2020.

The claim that "there is simply no way to verify the accuracy of China's numbers" is simply groundless.

First of all, China has been disclosing its data in a timely and transparent manner since the outbreak of COVID-19. Johns Hopkins University also quoted the data released by the Chinese authorities.

However in the U.S., the CDC announced on March 2 that it would stop publishing any data in relation to the number of people being tested and the number of deaths. Prior to that, the agency had been in the center of scandals regarding flawed or inadequate supply of test kits. American netizens accused the CDC of "covering up the outbreak."

In addition, China has been committed to sharing its information with other countries, and the U.S. has access to China's information on the disease from the very beginning. Actions speak louder than words. A brief look at what China has done would fully unveil the ridiculous nature of those baseless accusations.

On January 3, China started to inform the United States of the pneumonia outbreak and share its relevant information on a regular basis. On January 4, the head of the China CDC talked over phone with the director of the U.S. CDC about the virus. Both sides agreed to keep in close contact for information sharing and technological cooperation. On January 27, Ma Xiaowei, director of China's National Health Commission, talked over phone with Alex Azar, the United States secretary of Health and Human Services, at request, on the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In February, scientists from the U.S. CDC and National Institutes of Health also joined the WHO-China joint mission and conducted a nine-day field visit in China to understand fully the outbreak and its control in China. As suggested by Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, American researchers were able to work on vaccines against the virus thanks to the genome shared by the Chinese researchers. Facing these undeniable facts, how is it possible for anyone to question China's transparency on the virus information?

Many days into the crisis, some American politicians are still accusing China of "lack of data transparency" merely to serve their own political agenda. For them, using the virus to earn political capital seems to matter more than defeating the virus and saving lives. That being the case, widely trumpeting that China should be held accountable for the coronavirus catastrophe in the U.S. is not only blatantly lying through their teeth, but also ill-intentioned scapegoating.

Ironically, while the U.S. relentlessly blames China for its "lack of transparency," Washington is clamping down on "freedom of speech." VoA was whipped for nothing but telling some truth, but this can still be considered a lenient punishment.

The White House has slapped various restrictions on reporters it dislikes – banning them from White House briefings, expelling them, suspending their press credentials, suspending permission for them to conduct interviews, disqualifying them from escorting official trips, etc. Reporters from mainstream American media including CNN and

The New York Times

have all been targeted.

Screenshot of data from Johns Hopkins University shows that as of 3 p.m. Beijing Time on April 11, 2020, the U.S. had recorded 501,609 cases of COVID-19. Its total death toll, standing at 18,777, far exceeded that of China.

It's already been 11 days since VoA posted this graphic to compare China's coronavirus death toll to America's. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, as of 3 P.M. Beijing Time on April 11, the U.S. had recorded 501,609 cases of COVID-19. Its total death toll, standing at 18,777, far exceeded that of China.

Eleven days ago, numbers on VoA's graphic were "U.S. 3,873 vs. China 3,309." In merely 11 days, they have turned to "U.S. 18,777 vs. China 3,339."

Such a huge gap is not caused by the "inaccuracy" of China's numbers, but the "indifference" of American politicians.

After all, who puts people's life and health first? These numbers tell it all.

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