BILOXI, Miss. _ Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves stirred some controversy on Wednesday when he referred to COVID-19 as the "China Virus" in a Facebook post, and he seemed to give support to a conspiracy theory about the source of the virus in a media briefing later in the day.
In his Facebook post, Reeves used the controversial term while warning people to be cautious and practice social distancing during the Labor Day weekend.
Later that afternoon, Reeves was asked during the media conference why he had used the name for the virus, with the reporter pointing out that some people of Asian heritage have been harassed with the term.
Reeves had not been heard using the term much, if at all, prior to Wednesday.
"I've said it multiple times," he said. "I would say that I don't condone any Asian Americans or anyone from the People's Republic of China who happen to live in the U.S. ... I don't condone anyone bullying them. I don't condone mask bullying either. I think those who choose not to wear masks should not be bullied by their friends. I think we should encourage those to wear masks. It's a mandate in our state."
Reeves then seemed to stoke a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was either made in a lab or it escaped from a lab.
"The reality is had this virus had not escaped from however it occurred from the lab in China, I don't know we'd be having the conversations we're having all day, every day. That's just a fact," the Republican governor said. "The people of China are not our enemies, but there's no question that the Communist Party of China certainly is no friend or ally of the U.S. That's just a fact."
President Donald Trump said in May that he had seen evidence that had given him "high confidence" that the virus originated in a Chinese lab.
However, the only evidence that the White House has produced that gives support to that suggestion is a 2018 internal cable at the State Department about a lack of properly trained personnel at a virology lab in Wuhan _ which became an early center for the spread of the virus in 2019.
Multiple infectious disease experts have said that there is no evidence of the virus originating in a Chinese lab. Those same experts say animal-to-human transmission is more likely the source.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases, discounted the idea that the virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan lab in an interview with National Geographic.
