The Chinese government allowed coronavirus to spread from Wuhan around the rest of the globe, then attempted to cover up the "global disaster," historian Niall Ferguson told Newsmax TV.
"You and I know it originated in Wuhan," Ferguson told Thursday's "Greg Kelly Reports." "We can't be quite sure where in Wuhan, whether it was a so-called wet market or that laboratory, but it certainly originated there."
In an article last week, Ferguson asked several questions of Chinese officials about when they first knew about coronavirus. He said after coronavirus was discovered by doctors in Wuhan in early December, and after they knew it could be passed along human-to-human, local officials told them to keep quiet about what they unearthed.
"This was fake news really scraped the bottom of the barrel, and it was a sign of the desperation that there was in Beijing to try and deflect the world's attention away from the fact not only that the virus began its devastating trail of havoc there."
Ferguson said the cover-up from the Chinese government went as far as to hold Lunar New Year's celebrations, knowing it would spread the virus even more. Chinese officials would eventually point to the United States in an attempt to place blame for the creation of coronavirus.
"To my astonishment, back in March, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman started to spread the fake news that in fact the virus had been brought to Wuhan by the American military," Ferguson said.
Ferguson added: "The Chinese authorities systematically covered up the extent of the problem, covered up the fact that there was human-to-human transmission . . . and therefore bears a very heavy share of the blame for the fact that this has now become a global disaster."
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