The World Health Organization has been criticized a lot lately for trusting China far too much and essentially getting it wrong on the spread of the Coronavirus. So I decided to go back today through what seemed like a gazillion tweets to see the WHO coronavirus history for myself. Here’s what I found.
You all should have seen this infamous tweet by now…
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
But here are a few more I’d like to highlight.
On January 23rd, WHO still refused to declare a Public Health Emergency even though their committee was divided on the issue:
BREAKING: "I am not declaring a public health emergency of international concern [PHEIC] today.
As it was yesterday, the Emergency Committee was divided over whether the outbreak of novel coronavirus represents a PHEIC"-@DrTedros on new #coronavirus
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 23, 2020
On the same day they also thanked China for their transparency and praised them for their detection of the virus:
"WHO is working with our partners night and day in #China and the other affected countries, at the regional level and here at headquarters to fill the gaps in our knowledge as quickly as possible"-@DrTedros on new #coronavirus
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 23, 2020
"Once again, I’d like to thank the Government of #China for its cooperation & transparency. The government has been successful in isolating & sequencing the virus very quickly & has shared that genetic sequence with WHO & the international community"-@DrTedros on new #coronavirus
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 23, 2020
"This [new #coronavirus] outbreak was detected because #China had put in place a system specifically to pick up severe lower respiratory infections. It was that system that caught this event"-@DrTedros
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 23, 2020
It wasn’t until January 30th that the Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom, declared a Public Health Emergency:
🚨BREAKING🚨
"For all of these reasons, I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of #2019nCoV."-@DrTedros
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 30, 2020
He also continued his overflowing praise of China:
"As I have said repeatedly since my return from Beijing, the 🇨🇳 government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the #2019nCoV outbreak, despite the severe social & economic impact those measures are having on the Chinese people"-@DrTedros
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 30, 2020
"The speed with which #China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome and shared it with WHO and the world are very impressive. So is 🇨🇳’s commitment to transparency and to supporting other countries"-@DrTedros #2019nCoV
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 30, 2020
In fact he believed in the propaganda China was giving so much that he actually said on the same day it would be WRONG to ban travel from China:
“The WHO doesn’t recommend and actually opposes any restrictions for travel and trade or other measures against China. If anyone is thinking about taking measures, it’s going to be wrong.”
He said that one day before Trump declared a travel ban on China on January 31st.
This is why so many, including former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, are calling for the head of the WHO to resign:
The @WHO is an accomplice to China's massive coverup of Covid19. That's why I support efforts by @marcorubio & @tedcruz pushing for resignation of WHO director general. He misled the world by blindly trusting a communist regime intent on deception.
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) April 6, 2020
He’s right. “Blindly trusting” China is a great way to put it, especially considering what we know now about the obscene measures China has been taking to ‘contain’ the virus.
And that’s not even mentioning the silencing of doctors within China who were warning others about the virus. And the fact that WHO is now admitting that they ignored December transmission concerns from Taiwan because they didn’t want to upset China.
When Trump says that WHO has been far too “China centric”, he’s not wrong.
I only went through the end of January with this because I just don’t have time to dig into all of their tweets from February. Plus January was the key month when the world became aware of the virus. That said, I would like to highlight one more tweet. I thought I saw this in January, but I could only find it in mid February:
FACT: The risk of being infected with the new #coronavirus by touching coins, banknotes, credit cards and other objects, is very low https://t.co/TdKoGmWrIr#COVID19 #KnowtheFacts pic.twitter.com/tYZ6UyQxjT
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 18, 2020
They claim it’s a fact that the risk of infection via credit cards, banknotes and coins is LOW. After all that we’ve learned, is that really a fact?