Express.co.uk readers can vote in our poll on whether Boris Johnson should send a bill to China for the devastating consequences of the crisis. It comes as Missouri has become the first US state to sue Beijing over the outbreak.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said: “The Chinese government lied to the world about the danger and contagious nature of Covid-19, silenced whistleblowers, and did little to stop the spread of the disease.

“They must be held accountable for their actions.”

The UK could sue China for up to £351 billion, according to a report by the Henry Jackson Society think tank.

The report’s co-author Matthew Henderson said: “The Chinese Communist Party has learnt no lessons from its failure in the SARS epidemic of 2002-3.

“Their repeated blunders, lies and disinformation, from the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, have already had far more deadly consequences.”

US President Donald Trump has warned China should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the pandemic.

Speaking at a White House press briefing, he said: “If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake.

“But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, then there should be consequences.

“Was it a mistake that got out of control or was it done deliberately?

“That’s a big difference between those two.

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“In either event they should have let us go in.

“We asked to go in early. And they didn’t want us in.

“I think they knew it was something bad and they were embarrassed.”

Mr Trump added that China “said they’re doing an investigation”.

He said: “So let’s see what happens with their investigation. But we’re doing investigations also.”

Elsewhere, German newspaper Bild has said Beijing “owes” Berlin €149 billion (£130 billion) in coronavirus damages.

And Australia has demanded an international investigation into the pandemic.

China has faced growing accusations of a cover-up over the outbreak, which is widely thought to have started at a “wet market” in Wuhan.

Last week, Beijing revised its death toll up by 1,290.

It follows speculation that the true figure was higher than reported.

There have also been reports the virus, which has infected millions of people around the world, escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.

In the UK, which has been on lockdown for a month, there have been 129,044 confirmed cases with the death toll at 17,337.

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