China has faced numerous accusations over its handling of the initial COVID-19 outbreak from US officials, including President Donald Trump who claims that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory and that Beijing was hiding the true information about the state of the outbreak in its early stages. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has vehemently denied a report by the German magazine Der Spiegel, claiming that Chinese President Xi Jinping “pressured” the Director-General of the WHO into withholding information about the coronavirus in late January.