Coronavirus and WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) stands accused of conspiring with China to cover up the coronavirus epidemic.

Various conspiracy theories have been doing the rounds across social media for quite some time now. Many of these had been from unconfirmed sources claiming that the coronavirus was leaked from a lab. But recently, senior government officials and intelligence authorities from the USA, Australia, U.K., and Taiwan have been voicing their concerns that possible foul play is involved.

If this allegation is true then it raises ethical questions. The WHO is delegated with the responsibility of safeguarding the well being of the world population against pandemics. It is a mammoth organization into which billions of dollars are funneled each year. The WHO utterly failed to stem the spread of this dangerous disease.

In this article, we do not want to accuse anyone of malice as we don’t have proof. But we can certainly analyze their actions and provide our assessment and provoke critical thinking. We believe that much can be learned on this matter if we simply follow the trail of this coronavirus saga.

The USA Government accuses WHO of conspiring with China to spread coronavirus

Sources high up in the USA government told Fox News that there is reliable information that the coronavirus is likely to have originated in a Wuhan laboratory rather than the wet market in Wuhan. It is claimed that there has been an extensive cover-up of data and information about COVID-19 orchestrated by the Chinese government in collaboration with WHO.

The sources also confirmed that China used the wet market theory, which was parroted by the World Health Organization, to disguise and deflect exploration into the origins of the virus.

What we do know is we know that this virus originated in Wuhan, China. We know there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. There is still lots to learn. You should know that the United States government is working diligently to figure it out.

USA Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – Speaking to Fox News on April 15th

In the interview, Mike Pompeo also claimed that China and the WHO were not transparent and forthcoming regarding the coronavirus pandemic.

It is being claimed that the Chinese government hid information and actively silenced medical professionals from warning against the virus.

China filed a patent for Remsvidir, a drug seen as one of the best potential weapons against coronavirus the day after it confirmed human transmission of the disease.

This suggests that China’s understanding of the virus was far advanced from the impression given by its public stance during the initial days.

Trump accuses WHO of Coronavirus Coverup

On 14th April, President Donald Trump gave endorsement to this alleged conspiracy when he announced that he plans to halt US funding (which was $418 million in 2018 ) for the World Health Organization. In a White House press conference he accused WHO for “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,”

On 15th April 2020, the US president suspended funding for the WHO for 60 to 90 days pending a review of the WHO’s warnings about the coronavirus and China.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The U.S. is the largest donor of WHO and contributes nearly 10% to the World Health Organization’s budget. So this freezing of funding will come as a significant blow to the organization. The U.S. is also planning to conduct a review to assess the role of WHO in mismanaging and covering up the spread of coronavirus.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman claims US army ‘brought the epidemic to Wuhan’

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, alleged on twitter that “It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”

British Government officials claim coronavirus leaked from Wuhan Lan

According to the daily mail, senior British Government officials part of the emergency coronavirus committee claimed that the theory that the coronavirus leaked from a Wuhan lab is ‘no longer being discounted’.

One member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s emergency committee which receives detailed classified briefings from the security services said, ‘There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.’

New Yorkers sue World Health Organization over coronavirus response

Residents of a suburban New York City county that was one of the earliest US hotspots for the coronavirus sued the World Health Organization on 20 April 2020. In the lawsuit, they accused the WHO of conspiring with China’s government to cover up Covid-19’s severity.

The World Health Organization’s initial laid back response to contain coronavirus in China looks suspicious

We are clearly not privy to sensitive information which is found by government secret services and agencies, but we can look at some of the publicly available information that the WHO and its Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus provided when the coronavirus crisis was just starting to brew in China.

So lets look at the initial time line of how coronavirus started in China and the World Health Organization’s initial response to mitigate the spread of this pandemic.

Covid-19 Response Timeline – WHO

COVID-19 outbreak starts in Wuhan, China.

December 30, 2019

Ai Fen, a top director at Wuhan Central Hospital, posts information on WeChat about the new virus. She was reprimanded for doing so and told not to spread information about it.

December 31, 2019

China first started seeing coronavirus cases in early December 2020, yet chose to inform WHO about this nearly a month later on December 31st.

On the same day, Taiwan’s Centers for disease control sent an email to the WHO warning them that this new virus causes pneumonia-like symptoms and spreads from person to person. But WHO officials ignore Taiwan’s warning and do not expedite investigation and isolation of COVID-19 patients.

US Department of State spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus twitted regarding this:

Dec. 31— that’s the same day Taiwan first tried to warn WHO of human-human transmission. Chinese authorities meanwhile silenced doctors and refused to admit human-human transmission until Jan. 20, with catastrophic consequences.

January 1, 2020

On January 1st, 2020, the WHO set up an Incident Management Support Team in China to investigate and contain the outbreak of COVID-19.

From this point, the World Health Organization was actively involved with the Chinese authorities to study, assess, and mitigate the risks of coronavirus.

January 11, 2020

China records its first death from the virus, but this information cannot be trusted. China concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, thanks China for sharing information about the coronavirus in a timely manner.

But we know this is totally incorrect as it is now clear that the WHO was providing a false sense of assurance without ascertaining the facts on the ground.

By this time thousands of patients were infected with hundreds already dead. China consistently shut down doctors and journalists from speaking out with many of them going missing for alerting the media of the epidemic.

January 14, 2020

The WHO misinformed governments around the world that China had the coronavirus under control. It also claimed that this epidemic should not be a major concern to countries since there is no evidence for human-to-human transmission.

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

Around that time, the Taiwanese CDC again warned WHO that there was clear evidence of human to human transmissions but the global health body did not make it public.

According to the Associated Press, that same day top Chinese officials had determined that they were likely facing a pandemic in Wuhan from the coronavirus.

20-21 January 2020

WHO sends a delegation to visit Wuhan to learn about the response to the 2019 novel coronavirus. According to the global health body, investigations suggest that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan.

It is interesting to note that the WHO took almost a month to make this assessment public even though Taiwan was warning about this for almost a month!

WHO did not warn China to implement lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus. They also missed yet another opportunity to alert WHO member countries to impose travel bans and restrictions on Chinese Citizens.

22-23 January 2020

The WHO Director-General convened an emergency meeting to assess whether the outbreak constituted a public health emergency of international concern.

This is the forum where WHO apprises countries of the threat posed by the disease and advises them on potential actions that need to be taken to control its spread. You can read the transcript of Dr. Tedros here.

Even at this very late stage, he was saying that there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China even though the virus had spread to countries such as Taiwan, Australia, Japan, Thailand, and South Korea. He was using this meeting to cozy up with China and thanking the Chinese repeatedly for their cooperation and transparency in handling the coronavirus situation.

The WHO chief clearly stated that despite the rapid spread of the disease to other countries he didn’t want to declare it as a pandemic yet.

Note: A week later on 29th January, he claimed that in his report he mentioned that the global risk assessment being moderate was a typo and he actually meant to say the opposite which is high risk!!!

Come on, give me a break, the World Health Organization being the health arm of the United Nations is the most important health organization in the world. Organizations of this size and importance don’t make mistakes of such magnitude.

Eyebrows need to be raised, how can a human error cause someone to write “moderate risk” instead of “high risk”.

How can this be labeled as a mere typo? To me, it appears as an intentional sleight of hand to deceive the whole world and cost governments valuable time to contain the spread of the virus. Documents issued at the international level are assessed, proofread, and cross-checked several times before release.

His one “small” error meant a world of difference. It created another level of false security. Due to his “typo”, 196 countries in the world did nothing to test, isolate, and impose restrictions on international travel to reduce the risk of a global outbreak of coronavirus. It took the Director-General and his team of paid assistants almost 1 week to notice this glaring error!

Surely there should be an investigation on how an organization that is in charge of dealing with a pandemic can afford to make such stupid “mistakes” which has cost thousands of people their lives.

WHO deeply regrets the error in this week’s situation report, which inserted the word “moderate” inaccurately in the #coronavirus global risk assessment. This was a human error in preparing the report. I have repeatedly stated the high risk of the outbreak https://t.co/Qp871ObmdE

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 29, 2020

25 January 2020

Even though the virus was spreading like wildfire, Dr. Tedros was encouraging the people in China to celebrate the Chinese new year instead of calling for restrictions on peoples’ movements and encouraging social distancing. The Chinese new year falls on 25th January and it is also the start of their 7-day spring festival. These kinds of gatherings are not good when you are dealing with an epidemic.

These days, the global health body is asking countries to enforce strict lockdown measures and close down most businesses and places of gatherings such as schools, offices, and restaurants. Howcome the same WHO was not interested in imposing similar measures when the threat was isolated in a single country? If the WHO had acted responsibly and done its job, the world wouldn’t be suffering at such a scale today.

The Director-General was giving a false sense of assurance that the WHO was working day and night with its partner “China” to end the outbreak. This he was doing after giving the world a false sense of security through the “error” in his report!

It is clear now why there was a convenient “human error” on his part on January 22nd. He wanted millions of people to move around unrestricted both within China and outside China to carry the coronavirus to every country as they celebrated their new year.

If WHO really wanted to contain the virus they would have made a strong appeal to ban mass gathering of millions of people but what did they do instead? They published a false report to downplay the true impact of COVID-19.

Best wishes to everyone celebrating Chinese New Year this weekend. My thoughts are with you & especially with those who are worried about the new #coronavirus. We are working with our partners night & day in 🇨🇳 & outside to end the outbreak. Together, for a healthier, safer world

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 25, 2020

29 January 2020

Director-General of the WHO again reiterates his strong relationship with President Xi Jinping of China and peddales misinformation that China is controlling the coronavirus and protecting all people globally from the outbreak.

Just back from🇨🇳where I held frank talks with President Xi Jinping, who has taken charge of a monumental national response to the #coronavirus outbreak. Based on cooperation & solidarity, China has committed to protecting its citizens & all people globally from the outbreak pic.twitter.com/Q2aT3UYpAn

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 29, 2020

January 31, 2020

The WHO and Dr. Tedros were very insistent that countries should not impose any kind of travel bans between countries and especially for flights coming in from China. They were well aware that the world was dealing with a pandemic of a highly contagious nature with no cure but yet they wanted to allow it to spread unrestricted.

Now, what possible gain could the WHO have by allowing the rapid spread of COVID-19?

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“There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.

We call on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent.” https://t.co/H8rBr6ASZH

— World Health Organization Philippines (@WHOPhilippines) January 31, 2020

March 11, 2020

This kind of lackluster response from the WHO goes on all the way up until March 11th when it declares the coronavirus as a pandemic. It took the WHO Director-General almost 3 months to declare COVID-19 as a pandemic after 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 dead.

In his speech to the media, Dr. Tedros said that: “we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.”

But is he forgetting the fact that the reason coronavirus was spreading like wildfire was because of his own incompetence in insisting countries not to impose any travel bans from highly infected countries?

The time to stop this pandemic was the critical first few weeks of January 2020. Back then, The World Health Organization was very adamant that countries should not place trade and travel restrictions. The WHO published a report on 30th January 2020:

The measures China has taken are good not only for that country but also for the rest of the world….The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available.

Countries must inform WHO about travel measures taken, as required by the IHR. Countries are cautioned against actions that promote stigma or discrimination, in line with the principles of Article 3 of the IHR.

Conclusion

According to a study conducted by the University of Southampton, if interventions in China could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.

Due to overwhelming evidence of a potential foul play, many countries are now calling for an independent review into the spread of coronavirus. Recently Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged world leaders to support an international inquiry into the global response to the coronavirus pandemic, including the World Health Organization’s handling of the crisis.

Folks, questions need to be asked. There is much to learn about the origin and spread of coronavirus. Could there be a tiny possibility that a global pandemic was created intentionally?