Five Floridian plaintiffs have filed a class action lawsuit challenging the Chinese government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
The coronavirus class action lawsuit was filed by Logan Alters, Marta Reyes, Lawrence Wood, Stephen Clyne, and The Pitching Lab, also known as TBT Training.
The five plaintiffs argue that it was due, at least in part, to the Chinese government’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak that the issue turned into a worldwide pandemic.
They seek to represent two Classes of people affected by the outbreak — a Class of all those in the United States affected by the outbreak, and a subclass of parties in Florida affected by the outbreak.
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None of the plaintiffs have caught the coronavirus, but according to the pandemic class action lawsuit, they were still injured by the outbreak.
The coronavirus class action claims that people throughout the state of Florida, and people throughout the country were injured even if they have not been infected. They say the virus has taken an economic toll on the United States, and has caused panic, emotional distress and other injuries throughout the country.
Specifically, the plaintiffs have filed claims against the People’s Republic of China, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, Ministry of Emergency Management of the People’s Republic of China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Government of Hubei Province, and the People’s Government of City of Wuhan, China.
These governmental bodies were reportedly in charge of overseeing the response to the coronavirus pandemic in China, and within the city of Wuhan in the Hubei Province, where the outbreak originated.
The Floridians note that it has not been confirmed how the outbreak spread to what it is today, but regardless, the Chinese government did not handle the issue correctly. They also claim that their actions allowed many people around the world to be affected.
The coronavirus class action lawsuit states that a new strain of the virus, known as COVID-19 originated in China in December 2019, and quickly spread throughout the world.
The Floridians present one theory alleging that COVID-19 spread from a bio-weapon lab and then into a nearby marketplace. Allegedly, there are only two bio-weapon labs in the People’s Republic of China, and one of them is the National Biosafety Laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
According to the coronavirus pandemic class action lawsuit, this laboratory is close to the marketplace where COVID-19 originated. This laboratory is reportedly China’s only “level 4” microbiology lab, dealing with “the deadliest of viruses.”
The COVID-19 outbreak states that one theory is that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan lab because of lax security, or because Chinese researchers unlawfully sold lab animals to the marketplace nearby.
Researchers in China have allegedly been known to do this instead of cremating them, as is required by Chinese law.
No matter how the disease spread, the Florida residents argue the Chinese government did not respond appropriately to the outbreak.
Allegedly, the government put the safety of people around the world at risk, choosing instead to act “from their own self interest” and to “protect their place as a super-power.”
The government did not report the outbreak as quickly as they could have, underreported cases, and did not contain the outbreak effectively, even though they knew how serious the outbreak was, the plaintiffs say.
Elaborating on these allegations, the Floridians argue that the Chinese government censored eight doctors on Jan. 1, 2020 from speaking about the outbreak and the danger associated with it. The coronavirus outbreak class action argues that even after the first person died of a COVID-19 infection on the same day, the government concealed the true dangers of the coronavirus.
The plaintiffs state that the Chinese government told the public the outbreak was under control. However, the government allegedly knew the virus was spread easily from human to human by Jan. 3 but concealed this information until Jan. 20, by which point the disease had already spread beyond China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said he had taken measures to contain the virus on Jan. 7, but he reportedly lied in saying this, and did not take steps to contain the virus until later in the month.
Additionally, the Florida residents argue that the Chinese government waited 17 days to share the 19 genome sequence of coronavirus with peers around the world, after it had been discovered by Chinese researchers.
The plaintiffs claim that the Chinese government downplayed the severity of the virus by saying that deaths associated with coronavirus were instead caused by pneumonia.
The coronavirus response class action lawsuit says that this has caused injury to United States and potential Floridian Class Members not only in the form of infection by the virus, but in the form of fear, lost social contact, financial injury, emotional distress, and more.
The Class Members are represented by Matthew T. Moore and Vincent J. Duffy of The Law Offices of Berman & Berman PA.
The Coronavirus Outbreak Class Action Lawsuit is Logan Alters, et al. v. People’s Republic of China, et al., Case No. 1:20-cv-21108-UU, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.
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305 thoughts onCoronavirus Class Action Blames China for Pandemic
I work as a registered behavior technician at a company that provides applied behavior analysis therapy to children on the autism spectrum. I have been affected by illness from a client whose father works in an emergency room and contacted the virus. I have not tested positive for the virus, but I have had flu-like symptoms. My job has refused to allow us to stay home, as advised by the governmental chambers. Now, since my client is being quarantined, I am being relocated to a new client who lives in another city about a half-hour away.
Because of the lack of accountability, responsibility and transparency of the Chinese government, they did not contain and manage the virus allowing it to spread worldwide. This has caused my family trauma from fear of contracting the virus due to a compromised immune system, encountering pandemonium and chaos trying to buy groceries in ANY store and finding out everything sold out, feeling imprisoned in my own home because now the US Federal, state and local governments are strongly encouraging everything to close. No outside activities from sports events and concerts to movies to shopping to dining out. Schools closed. No contact with anyone. Almost complete shutdown of everything. Not to mention the anxiety over losing probably half my investment portfolio because this epidemic has caused the markets to crash as well as affected all the supply chains. Borders are closing one by one. Yes, my family has been traumatized.
Please add me. The restaurants have been closed in my state. I have friends who live in a high-rise building fir the elderly/disabled & they are not allowed any visitors. This is not good for their mental health. Also, their building manager has locked their laundry room until this virus has been eradicated. This has made enormous stress for my friends, and now my stress is rising because I can’t get to them to help. And people are not paying attention to what they are doing. I have been missed 3 times by cars in a hurry to get into a parking lot that I was crossing in front of on the sidewalk. I do not have a car, and the transit is fairly sure the governor will order them to cease operations at the end of the week, even though our state still has no one with the virus. Like many in my state, we will be totally isolated without public transit.
Gloria Sertage
Gloriasertage5@gmail.com
Losing time working because of corona virus
Add me…
Please add me and my husband to the list. My husband has just lost his job. People are canceling solar jobs as 401k’s plummet. He worked at a solar company. We are 62, we now have no insurance and I have asthma and have to be on my meds, which will now be unaffordable.
Please add both myself in my husband my name is Christine and my husband Shawn we’ve both been affected by this extremely so has our entire family we have three people in the family who are currently going through chemotherapy with cancer another three with autoimmune diseases my husband has underlying heart conditions and I might be going through the same thing we have a small business that we started in 2013 it’s our lifelong dream we’ve made it come true and watch it go down the toilet is extremely depressing both of us are having anxiety from being in the house and I’m watching my kids go through something that they’ve never go through gone through before China needs to be held accountable for their actions this is not cool we need to set the standard for the next time something like this happens .God bless…
I usually don’t comment this but your story is similar to mine and broke my heart. We must stick together and help each other out the best we can. All I can offer here is a bit of knowledge. Commenting “add me” or “please add me” with your story in the comments here does nothing. You must wait until a class action lawsuit is actually started and in process, when this happens, you will see directions of how to file the claim yourself in the article. It is very obvious how to do it when reading through one that has the process open to file. For example, if you read through the “open settlements” section, those ones are open to file and you will see how it shows you right how and where to do so. You will ALWAYS see people comments “add me!! Add me!” I think it’s just people not reading, assuming that’s how it’s done because they see others posting that way and then just not using common sense. They wouldn’t know where to send the money or who you are at all. You have a lot going on right now so it makes total sense that you didn’t really have the time to think about it, but I want you to be able to get any of the money hon qualify for from these. If you make an account you can flag articles if they don’t have a way to file a claim yet and then when the article is updated, you will get an email. I obviously can’t write this info to everyone, I have tried many in the past, but it’s impossible to reach everyone hopefully others read it and learn as well.
Stay healthy!
God Bless!
I am one of 30,000 television production people who were immedietly put out of all work when all sports television,both pro and college, were cancelled. YOU HAVE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE OUT OF WORK!
I am one of 30,000 television production people who were immedietly put out of all work when all sports television,both pro and college, were cancelled. YOU HAVE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE OUT OF WORK! I can put you in touch with thousands!!!
Please add me so far my life has been turned up side down but I thank God so far I haven’t lost any family members.I believe it has really just begun.No groceries to buy elderly disabled mother,sick mother and father in law.Just scary times. We closed our business today for two weeks.Im not working now .My husband is a truck driver and he has had two loads in two weeks. We were in the process of buying a truck for our own company and the covid-19 came and stopped that from happening.
I live in LasVegas. The hotel that I work in has been closed. I have no income. No way to pay bills. I also have a compromise immune system. It’s always a risk to go out but I have refused to live in a bubble. Now I hear that we are having a mandatory quarantine starting tomorrow