The head of the World Health Organization blamed world leaders for the dire consequences of the coronavirus because they didn’t follow the organization’s warnings.
The WHO has faced accusations of being pro-China and of downplaying the severity of the virus at its start, which resulted in President Trump halting U.S. contributions to the organization.
“We can only give advice to countries, but one thing should be clear: We don’t have any mandate to force countries to implement what we advise them. It’s up to the countries to take our advice or reject it, but we give our advice based on the best science and evidence,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a WHO press conference on Monday.
Tedros cited the highest level global emergency declaration, which was issued on Jan. 30, as an example of the WHO’s early actions.
“During that time, as you may remember, there were only 82 cases outside China, no cases in Latin America, no cases in Africa, only 10 cases in Europe, no disease in the rest of the world. Nothing. So the world should have listened to WHO then carefully.”
The head of the health organization also said that critics can check the spread of the virus in countries that did not heed its recommendations in comparison to those who did listen.
“I think that suffices the importance of listening to WHO advice, and then we advise the whole world to implement a comprehensive public health approach,” he said. “We said find tests, isolate, and do contact tracing and so on. You can check for yourselves countries who followed that are in a better position than others. This is fact.”
He added, “So again I will come back, I can give you many examples, but I don’t want to take much of this time because the many people who want to ask additional questions, but one thing I would like to repeat is: I assure you that WHO gives the best advice we can based on science and evidence. It’s up to the countries to reject or accept.”
One of the reasons the WHO has faced criticism from Trump and many of his backers was because it disagreed with the president’s decision to temporarily ban travel to and from China. Tedros suggested that it could “have the effect of increasing fear and stigma with little public health benefit.”
