China lied, and people died. That's a fact. It's also a fact that this pandemic originated in China. It's called the Wuhan coronavirus. Period. China discovered evidence of this pneumonia-like illness in December and ordered its scientists to destroy samples. China dragged its feet when it came to informing the public. It kept information about human-to-human transmission buried. It kept medical crews in the dark and strong-armed doctors who were trying to do the right thing. But somehow, it's not China's fault. I cannot eye-roll hard enough. And remember, the World Health Organization pretty much spread Chinese misinformation in January (via Fox News):
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
The World Health Organization (WHO) is now haunted by a tweet it sent earlier this year when it cited Chinese health officials who claimed there had been no human transmissions of the novel coronavirus within the country yet.
The Jan. 14 tweet came less than two months before WHO declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic.
"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," the organization had said.
It also relied on information from Chinese health authorities who have been accused of obscuring facts and figures during the course of the outbreak.
The Chinese government reportedly knew the disease was spreading before the tweet was sent, according to the South China Morning Post.
And yet, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus continues to praise China for its transparency over this fiasco, according to the Daily Caller. It all makes sense when you find out that China had backed Tedros' 2017 bid to be WHO director-general. Talk about quid pro quo, huh? And in a lengthy piece at DC, they detail this link, as well as place heavy blame on China for totally screwing up the response that could have kept this virus contained. Instead, China decided to let it spread to the rest of the world because what else would you expect from an ethnocentric, authoritarian regime that views the West with deep suspicion? (via Daily Caller):
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus won his post after China backed him in the May 2017 election.
[…]
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Chinese authorities are weaving a false counternarrative in which China was actually the victim of a foreign virus that it quickly moved to contain. And the WHO is helping them do it.
Tedros has praised China’s “transparency” and held up the country as a model response — even though the communist regime covered and then concealed the severity of the outbreak.
Chinese authorities forced scientists who discovered the virus in December to destroy proof of the virus, U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times reported. The Chinese regime also punished doctors who tried to warn the public in the outbreak’s early stages and suppressed information about the virus online. A Chinese real estate mogul who criticized his government’s response has since gone missing.
[…]
Tedros praised China’s disastrous handling of the pandemic as an example for the rest of the world to follow. “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response,” he said on Jan. 30, shortly after returning from a trip to Beijing.
“Tedros apparently turned a blind eye to what happened in Wuhan and the rest of China and, after meeting with Xi in January, has helped China to play down the severity, prevalence and scope of the COVID-19 outbreak,” University of Texas-San Antonio professor Henry Thayer and Citizens Power Initiatives for China vice president Lianchao Han wrote in a March 17 op-ed published in The Hill.
Well, even in health, politics is politics. And for China, I guess, its 2017 investment has paid off with Tedros spreading the communist government's nonsensical talking points.
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