Several reports, specially one from German news publication Der Spiegel claim that WHO allegedly worked under the Chinese influence during the initial days of COVID-19 pandemic. It has been alleged that the Chinese President Xi Jinping called WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to ‘delay global coronavirus response’. The phone call happened in January according to the reports.
Der Spiegel cited a report from their native country, Germany’s premier intelligence service known as ‘Bundesnachrichtendienst’ (BND). After the reports became viral, the World Health Organization refuted all these claims in a series of tweets. They claim that no phone call ever took place between the WHO and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. It is a known fact that the WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, though a renowned medical professional, is a member of the Ethiopian Communist Party and has always been close to the Chinese.
According to the report, the call between Tedros and Xi Jinping took place on 21st January, during which Xi asked Tedros to delay global response towards the novel coronavirus and withhold information about human to human transmission. “The BND estimates that China’s information policy lost four to six weeks to fight the virus worldwide,” the report said.
The World Health Organization obviously discredited the whole report and called its claims “unfound and untrue.” “Der Spiegel reports of a January 21, 2020, telephone conversation between Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and President Xi Jinping of China are unfounded and untrue,” the WHO said. “Dr. Tedros and President Xi did not speak on Jan. 21 and they have never spoken by phone. Such inaccurate reports distract and detract from WHO’s and the world’s efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic.”
On Saturday, the WHO, which is already under world scrutiny for allegations of it hiding China’s true intent behind the COVID-19 pandemic, said that “China confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus on Jan. 20.” The WHO publicly declared on Jan. 22 that “data collected … suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan.” While the virus has been around since the end of December 2019, it was declared a pandemic only in January. Initially, the World Health Organization even seconded the claims of Chinese doctors that the virus does not spread via human contact.
More than anyone, it is the President of United States of America, Donald Trump who has been at the back of WHO. After stopping their whooping $400 million funding, the flamboyant and rather blunt Republican US President hasn’t shied away from publicly calling WHO a Chinese propaganda tool, a ‘China-centric’ organization. He even went to the lengths of calling UN’s premier health organization a ’pipe-organ’ for Beijing.
Interestingly, US was the biggest fund-giver to the WHO, giving them $400 million in funds for the year 2019, whereas China’s contribution stood at $20 million for the year 2019.
