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China has released a cartoon that mocks the United States for its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 90-second animation, called “Once Upon a Virus,” uses Lego-like figures to represent the two countries.
Posted online by Xinhua, China’s state news agency, the video shows red curtains opening to reveal a stage featuring a terra-cotta warrior wearing a face mask and the Statue of Liberty.
The warrior alerts the New York symbol of the troubling spread of a new disease, saying, “We discovered a new virus.”
In a response that echoed the comments of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the statue responds “So what? It’s just a flu.”
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The warrior recounts the grim milestones in the China outbreak and advises the statue to stay home, only to receive the answer: “It is violating human rights.”
“Are you listening to each other?” asks the warrior when the statue begins to turn red with fever and is hooked on an intravenous drip.
“We are always correct, even if we contradict ourselves,” replies the statue.
(Image: Youtube)
(Image: Youtube)
“That’s what I love about you Americans, your consistency,” says the warrior.
Washington and Beijing have been embroiled in a war of words over the origins of Covid-19, which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
Since then, the deadly virus has spread worldwide and the United States now has more cases than any other country, with more than 1.1 million.
More than 67,000 Americans have been killed by the assassin bug, a higher death toll than the one sustained during the Vietnam War.
China has suffered 4,633 deaths from the virus and has officially registered 82,877 cases.
The coronavirus is widely believed to have first jumped from animals to humans at a live animal market in Wuhan, a transportation hub in Hubei province.
However, alternative theories have begun to emerge and Trump said Thursday that he is confident that Covid-19 has originated from a Chinese virology laboratory.
However, the President of the United States declined to describe the evidence behind his claim.
China has been accused of misleading the world about the severity of the outbreak, and there are increasing calls for an international investigation into the origins of the virus.
In an interview with Reuters, Trump said he believes China’s handling of the pandemic is proof that Beijing “will do everything it can” to make it lose its reelection bid in November.
The Lego press office has confirmed that it was not involved in the video.
The company said in a statement: “We were not involved in doing the animation in any way.”
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