Republican senator Rick Scott claimed today that the United States has evidence China is trying to slow down or sabotage the development of a coronavirus vaccine by Western countries, The Guardian reports.
"We have got to get this vaccine done. Unfortunately we have evidence that communist China is trying to sabotage us or slow it down," he told the BBC. "China does not want us … to do it first; they have decided to be an adversary to Americans and I think to democracy around the world."
When asked to provide evidence to back up his statements, Scott declined to do so, but asserted that the intelligence community did have the evidence at hand.
"This vaccine is really important to all of us getting our economy going again. What I really believe is whether England does it first or we do it first, we are going to share. Communist China, they are not going to share," he said.
Last week, Scott described China as an "adversary" and called for a boycott of Chinese products.