Coronavirus Class Action Blames China for Pandemic

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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