Trump: ‘China centric’ World Health Organization ‘blew it’ with coronavirus

“The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look,” Trump said. “Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?”

The WHO repeatedly and vocally opposed any countries imposing travel restrictions against China, but the Trump administration went ahead and placed limitations on travel to and from China at the end of January. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has credited this move with helping slow the spread of COVID-19 in the United States.

U.S. officials and lawmakers have repeatedly raised questions about whether WHO was being unduly influenced by China. Taiwan has claimed that it warned the WHO about the contagious threat posed by the coronavirus back in December, but its warnings went unheeded. WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward, who has lavished praise on China’s response, got the WHO into a storm of bad publicity recently when he refused to answer questions about Taiwan.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida blasted WHO over its “work for Communist China” and called for a congressional investigation.

There is well-documented evidence that China tried to cover up the existence and spread of the coronavirus, muzzled whistleblowers, misled the WHO, and attempted to block outside health experts. At least one study indicated that if the Chinese government had acted more quickly, the coronavirus’s global spread would have been greatly reduced.

The U.S. intelligence community suspects that China continues to lie about the outbreak.

Reports show Chinese doctors knew around late December and early January that human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus was almost certainly occurring, and the Chinese government silenced medical professionals who attempted to make the evidence public.

Yet the WHO tweeted on Jan. 14 that “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.” They tweeted a similar message at least six times that day, and WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised China’s response after a meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Jan. 28.

“Stopping the spread of this virus both in China and globally is WHO’s highest priority,” Tedros said. “We appreciate the seriousness with which China is taking this outbreak, especially the commitment from top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstrated, including sharing data and genetic sequence of the virus.”

Two days later, Tedros praised the Chinese government again, saying it was “to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak.”

“We would have seen many more cases outside China by now — and probably deaths — if it were not for the government’s efforts, and the progress they have made to protect their own people and the people of the world,” Tedros said. “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, and beyond words. So is China’s commitment to transparency and to supporting other countries.”

The same day, Tedros argued, “There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade” and “the WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.”

The WHO concluded the COVID-19 virus first appeared in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China, and an investigative report in February found “early cases identified in Wuhan are believed to have acquired infection from a zoonotic source” in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.