It is a fact that should be beyond dispute: The China Virus, a novel coronavirus, originated in Wuhan, China. Yet politics has a way of pressuring even those supposedly most concerned with scientific accuracy of finding ways to dance around the truth. Case in point, the widely respected scientific journal Nature released an editorial last week blasting those “who had erroneously been associating the virus with Wuhan and China,” even as the editors issued a mea culpa, saying, “That we did so was an error on our part, for which we take responsibility and apologize.” Are Nature’s editors apologizing for misinforming their readers as to the regional origin of COVID-19? No, they’re actually apologizing for failing to toe the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) line. Nature’s editors are so worried about being labeled as promoting xenophobia by the political elitists of the world that they are more than willing to play the role of CCP apologists.

Beijing has engaged in a major propaganda campaign aimed at spreading the lie that it had nothing to do with initiating or allowing the global pandemic. As is commonplace with totalitarian regimes, the Chinese communists led by Xi Jinping have engaged in a massive cover-up effort. Just one example is Beijing initiating obvious censorship — Fox News reports, “Two websites for leading universities in China seem to have published and then deleted academic research about the origins of the coronavirus.”

Senior research fellow of Chinese studies at Monash University, Kevin Carrico, explained, “[The ChiComs] are seeking to transform it from a massive disaster to one where the government did everything right and gave the rest of the world time to prepare. There is a desire to a degree to deny realities that are staring at us in the face. … That this is a massive pandemic that originated in a place that the Chinese government really should have cleaned up after SARS.”

On Saturday, Dr. Anthony Fauci blasted China for lying about human-to-human transmission of the virus back in December. “Early on we did not get correct information, and the incorrect information was propagated right from the beginning,” Fauci stated. He explained that this was why, back on January 21, he told the American public that the coronavirus was “not a major threat for the people in the United States.” Fauci continued, “It was in January, at a time when the Chinese were saying first that it was only going from an animal to a human and then, when there were human cases, that [they] looked like they were … inefficiently transmitted. It was at that time in mid-January that we made the statement.”

Meanwhile, over the weekend, the U.S. overtook Italy as the nation suffering the most number of deaths from the novel coronavirus. And while that may be the official number, the likely case is China has systematically hidden its number of dead in an effort to propagate the myth that Beijing’s reaction in addressing the pandemic should be praised. The truth is the ChiComs’ direct malfeasance is the reason tens of thousands around the world are dead and dying. No matter how much Nature, the WHO, or China may bloviate about political concerns, the scientific fact remains the same: China started this.