China Will Have to Respond to Hard Questions on COVID-19 Outbreak - UK Foreign Minister

Critics have charged China with allowing the COVID-19 pandemic to get out of control by hiding the outbreak and under-reporting data on those infected. Numerous media outlets have published reports suggesting that China created the coronavirus in a laboratory in Wuhan.

China will have to respond to hard questions on how the coronavirus outbreak happened, UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said in a statement.

"There's no doubt: we can't have business as usual after this crisis, and we'll have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and about how it could've been stopped earlier", Raab replied when he was asked about a possible future "reckoning" with China.

"There absolutely needs to be a very, very deep dive after-the-event review of the lessons, including on the outbreak of the virus... it needs to be driven by the science", Raab added.

He also stated that the COVID-19 outbreak had shown the "value of international co-operation" and that the UK had worked well with China on the repatriation of citizens and procurement.

US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States would halt its funding for the WHO, which he accused of grossly mismanaging and covering up on behalf of China the spread of the novel coronavirus. Trump announced a suspension period of 60 to 90 days pending the completion of an investigation of the WHO and China’s actions during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.