Brazilian President Calls Coronavirus Part of Chinese Biological Warfare

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<strong>Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has stirred up a hornet’s nest by suggesting that China could have developed the coronavirus in a laboratory and disseminated it as a tactic of biological warfare for economic gain.</strong></p>
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“It is a new virus, nobody knows if it came about in a laboratory or in a human being, who ingested a contaminated animal. But it is there. The military knows that it is part of chemical, bacteriological and radiological warfare. Are we not facing a new war?," said the President and posed the question “which country’s GDP has grown the most?” hinting at the Chinese role of mischief.</p>
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China declared an increase of 2.3 per cent in GDP last year, rising to around $ 15 trillion, while the world’s economy was in tatters. At its current economic performance, China could surpass the US as the world’s top economy in 2026, two years earlier than anticipated, according to an estimate.</p>
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The coronavirus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province in December 2019. The Communist government placed the city under a strict lockdown from 23 January 23 to 8 April, restricting visitors’ access and travel. People in the city couldn’t leave and people outside the city couldn’t enter. The rest of Hubei province also had specific lockdown measures along with other major cities in China, including Shanghai and Beijing.</p>
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Because of the draconian shutdown, the unemployment rate zoomed to a record high at 6.2 percent and the country’s economy dipped 6.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2020. But China recovered from COVID-19 and was quick to return to normal economic activity because of its ability to tame the pandemic, according to a JP Morgan analysis. While COVID-19 still remains a worldwide issue and ravaging economies all across the world including India which is reeling under a deadly second wave of coronavirus.</p>
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Brazilian President has been consistent in his attacks against its favourite trading partner China ever since the COVID-19 pandemic broke last year. His recent outburst is the latest in a series of digs at China along with his close aides who are also very vocal against China. Brazil media reported recently, the Economy Minister Paulo Guedes openly declared that the “Chinese invented the virus”. Brazil's former foreign minister Ernesto Araujo was replaced after he criticised "Maoist China" and its aim for "world domination".</p>
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COVID-19 is much deadlier in Brazil, home to the world's second-largest outbreak after the US. Coronavirus brought the Brazilian economy to a standstill and triggered the biggest annual decline in activity since 1990. The pandemic is expected to plunge Brazil into another recession. While President Bolsonaro has been sceptical both of the disease’s impact and its preventive measures. He has been repeatedly spoken out against social isolation, face masks and vaccines. He promoted unproven treatments against the coronavirus and got rid of three health ministers in April last year.</p>
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Supporters of right-wing leaders like Bolsonaro and Donald Trump have backed the theory that the virus originated in China's Wuhan laboratory, the virus's first epicentre.</p>