CHINA dismissed US threats to sue it over the Covid-19 outbreak today, saying that such action would be a breach of international law.

The Donald Trump administration, which has watched as the US death toll from the virus climbs to almost 100,000 — the highest in the world — has repeatedly blamed China for the global spread of coronavirus and threatened lawsuits for the damage it has done.

But Foreign Minister Wang Yi said any such suits would have “zero factual basis in law” and that China was not only a victim of the pandemic like everyone else, but it had done all it could to assist other countries in containing the pandemic, rushing medical aid and doctors to afflicted areas.

China said at last week’s World Health Assembly that any vaccine it develops will be a “public good” for the whole world’s use. A call from Costa Rica for all Covid-19 treatment patents to be pooled for international use was backed by all countries in the world except the United States and Britain.

“To our regret, in addition to the raging of the new coronavirus, a political virus is also spreading in the US which is to take every chance to attack and discredit China,” Mr Wang said.

“Some US politicians have fabricated too many lies and plotted too many conspiracies,” he said, but anyone trying to bring litigation against China was “living in a daydream and will humiliate themselves.”

China also reiterated strong objections to US insinuations that the virus could have escaped from its virology lab in Wuhan.

Wuhan Institute of Virology director Wang Yanyi said the accusation was “pure fabrication.” US ally France has also distanced itself from the unsubstantiated claim, while a leaked German intelligence report called it “a calculated attempt to distract” from President Trump’s disastrous handling of the pandemic.

Wuhan, a city of 11 million people that is the capital of China’s Hubei province, was the site of Covid-19’s first outbreak and endured a rigorous lockdown and quarantine regime from January to April. City authorities have been carrying out over a million tests per day for the virus in recent days as work is gradually resumed. China reported three new cases of Covid-19 today and just 79 people are still being treated for it.

Lockdown also began to be eased in many European countries, though the number of cases remains much higher than in China. Denmark announced the opening of museums and theatres with social distancing measures in place late last week after a second day with no deaths.