'It's Bats*** Crazy to Eat Bats': Bill Maher Blasts Critics Who Say 'Chinese Virus' is Wrong, Inaccurate

Bill Mayer defended referring to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus" as scientists have been naming diseases and other conditions after their country of origin for years.

Speaking during an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, the host also dismissed suggestions that referring to COVD-19 as the Chinese Virus is racist and that the country needs to be blamed for the pandemic.

"It's not racist to point out that eating bats is bat**** crazy," he said in reference to the wet markets in the Chinese city of Wuhan where the outbreak was first detected.

"Scientists, who are generally pretty liberal, have been naming diseases after the places they came from for a very long time," Maher said. "MERS stands for Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome, it's plastered all over airports and no one blogs about it.

"So why should China get a pass?

Maher also hit out at a tweet from Congressman Ted Lieu who said it was "just as stupid to call it the Milan virus" given the large number of confirmed cases in northern Italy.

"No, that would be way stupider because it didn't come from Milan. And if it did, I guarantee we'd be calling it the Milan Virus," Mayer added. "Can't we even have a pandemic without getting offended? When they named Lyme Disease after a town in Connecticut, the locals didn't get all ticked off.

"This isn't about vilifying a culture. This is about facts, it's about life and death," Mayer said. "So when people say, 'what if people hear Chinese Virus and blame China?' the answer is, we should blame China.

"Not Chinese Americans, but we can't stop telling the truth because racists get the wrong idea. There are always going to be idiots out there who want to indulge their prejudices, but this is an emergency.

"Sorry Americans, we're going to have to ask you to keep two ideas in your head at the same time. This has nothing to do with Asian Americans and it has everything to do with China.

"We can't afford the luxury anymore of non-judginess towards a country with habits that kill millions of people everywhere, because this isn't the first time. SARS came from China, and the Bird flu, and the Hong Kong flu, and the Asian flu. Viruses come from China like shortstops come from the Dominican Republic."

Officials and organizations have commend political figures, including President Donald Trump, for referring to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus" or "Wuhan virus" for creating stigma around Asian communities and fueling racist attacks.

"I think we've been very clear right since the beginning of this event that viruses know no borders and they don't care [about] your ethnicity, the color of your skin, how much money you have in the bank," Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization's health emergency programs, told the South China Morning Post.

"It's really important that we are careful in the language we use lest it lead to profiling of individuals associated with the virus."

New York Attorney General Letitia James also hit out at those calling it the Chinese Virus while setting up a dedicated hotline to deal with the sharp rise in the number of coronavirus-linked hate crimes in the city.

"As we face an unprecedented and uncertain time for New York, the United States, and the world, we must reiterate the fact that this pandemic does not give anyone an excuse to be racist, xenophobic, or biased," James said.

There are more than 1.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the world, with 103,257 deaths according to Johns Hopkins University. A total of 378, 838 people have managed to recover from the virus.