When President Trump first called the Coronavirus the "China virus," Asian-American members of Congress and the Communist government in China condemned the labeling as racist.
Trump continues to refer to the spreading pandemic as the "China virus" because that is where the disease originated from, and many more elected officials are following his lead, some even going a bit further in blaming the Chinese for the spread of the virus because of the eating practices.
Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) told reporters in Washington, D.C that China was to blame because of its "culture where people eat bats & snakes & dogs & things like that." Sen. Cornyn also pointed out that China "has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, and Swine Flu."
Cornyn is absolutely right, except that MERS originated in the Middle East. MERS was first reported in Saudi Arabia, not China.
CDC: "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is an illness caused by a virus (more specifically, a coronavirus) called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Most MERS patients developed severe respiratory illness with symptoms of fever, cough and shortness of breath. About 3 or 4 out of every 10 patients reported with MERS have died."
Sen. John Cornyn: "China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats & snakes & dogs & things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that's why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine Flu." pic.twitter.com/N4TIlGFqAL
— The Hill (@thehill) March 18, 2020
