Ignored warnings, shielded China: How WHO colluded with Chinese Communist Party to mislead the world about Coronavirus

There is no doubt that it was the Chinese government’s lethargy and callousness that has resulted in the global pandemic. While there are ample examples of the Chinese Communist Party’s mismanagement of virus be it SARS or the Wuhan virus, it is perhaps for the first time that a prestigious and a ‘neutral’ organisation like the World Health Organisation (WHO) has aided and abetted the Chinese propaganda. The Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus led WHO is equally culpable for the Wuhan virus pandemic.

We at tfipost.com have been extensively covering the Wuhan virus since the first case was reported in Wuhan. The cases and the videos coming out of Wuhan were not only gut-wrenching but also an ominous sign of things to come. However, the Chinese Communist Party colluded with the WHO and blinded the world over the Wuhan virus. 

The first cases of the Wuhan virus were seen as early as November but the Chinese government silenced the whistleblowers and downplayed the threat. It was not until late January that China woke up to tackle the virus, thus giving two months to the Wuhan virus to spread unabated.

The WHO shockingly refused to acknowledge the human to human transmission of the Wuhan virus despite several warnings and castigated countries like the USA and India who started restricting flights to and fro from China.

Two months later in March, the WHO finally declared the Wuhan virus as a pandemic, four months after the virus originated in Wuhan’s wet market. By then it was too little, too late.

In hindsight, had the WHO done its job and pulled up the Chinese government, the Wuhan virus would have been nipped in the bud. Let’s take a look at how the WHO aided the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda.

Chinese doctor Wenliang was one of the first whistleblower to raise the alarm over Coronavirus but the Communist party true to its characteristics, muzzled his concerns. When Wenliang on December 30, sent a message to fellow doctors in a chat group warning them to wear protective clothing to avoid infection, four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. 

In the letter, he was accused of “making false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order”. He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for “spreading rumours”. Local authorities later apologised to Dr Li. In his Weibo post he describes how on 10 January he started coughing, the next day he had a fever and two days later he was in the hospital. He was diagnosed with the Coronavirus on 30 January and succumbed to the virus in February. Recently, Dr Wenliang had been exonerated of all charges by the Chinese government. 

It was not only the Chinese whistleblowers, but also countries like Taiwan who warned the WHO. Taiwan was one of the countries to wake up to the threat of the Wuhan virus and it alerted WHO on Dec. 31 to human-to-human transmission by detailing how Wuhan medical staff were getting ill. 

But the WHO ignored the warning perhaps because China claims Taiwan to be a part of its territory while in reality, the Chinese Communist Party rules only the Mainland China. Paying heed to Taiwan’s warnings would have meant the WHO recognising the global status of Taiwan something which Xi Jinping wouldn’t have liked. Hence, the desperate warnings of Taiwan and Dr Wenliang were paid no heed by the WHO.

The events that unfolded in January reveals the role WHO played in aiding the spread of the virus. The WHO on January 14 took to Twitter to claim that there is no clear evidence of human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus — a stand endorsed by the Xi Jinping government at that time.

This effectively gave the validation that the Chinese government was waiting for as it prepared for the Lunar New Year celebrations on January 25. The Lunar New Year celebrations result in the world’s largest annual migration taking place. Mass-scale travels took place in China after which Coronavirus has been spread to nearly every part of the country and also Hong Kong where Chinese patients were being taken to receive free and better healthcare until the Hong Kong leadership was pressurised to close the border.

At this exact juncture, the Wuhan virus spread its deadly wings across the globe as the Chinese new year celebrations supercharged the virus. The Wuhan Mayor admitted on January 26th, that over 5 million people left Wuhan before the travel ban, thus spreading the virus. According to an estimate, the Chinese tourists were expected to make 450 million trips this year all of which were scheduled to take place during the period of 24th-30th January, on the occasion of Lunar New Year. 

The mass-scale travel took place thanks to the WHO’s decision on January 11 to not recommend any specific health measures for travellers to and from Wuhan. Shockingly, the WHO further claimed that there was no need of any screening as it offers little benefit and required deployment of considerable resources.

Dr Wenliang was also infected with the Wuhan virus on January 30 as China successfully exported the virus to the world. 

The next sequence of events give ample proof that Dr Tedros was himself in bed with the Chinese government. On January 31, when Trump decided to restrict the entry of all Chinese nationals in the USA, Dr Tedros hit out at Donald Trump as the former claimed that, “travel bans have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit.” Dr Tedros further warned that interfering with transportation and trade could harm efforts to address the crisis, and advised other countries not to follow the lead of Donald Trump. 

There is enough proof that China misled its citizens and blinded the world by hiding the intensity of the virus. Those who dared to speak out, were mysteriously disappeared and vilified with case in point being citizen journalists like Chen Quishi and Fang Bin. Online posts critical of the Chinese government were deleted but not once did the WHO slam China for its authoritarian attitude in dealing with the spread of the virus. Instead, the WHO came out with a report which commended Xi Jinping led government for its “transparency”. Even more shocking is the fact that how the WHO has turned a blind eye to the Chinese wet markets which have resulted in two of the deadliest viruses since the turn of the century — SARS and Wuhan virus.

The WHO earlier this month came out with a 40-page report on how well the Chinese government has tackled the Wuhan virus. While the Communist government has imposed a lockdown on Wuhan, the WHO report meekly mentions the lockdown as “strict traffic restrictions” and “the cordon sanitaire”. The report lauds China’s epidemic response measures — but conveniently ignores the late-December / early-January dates that might implicate the party’s initial mismanagement of the crisis.

If there was any doubts on the neutrality of the report, a line in the report reads that: “In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history.”

The Chinese government is desperately trying to pin the blame of the virus on the USA as it claims that it was the US military that brought the virus to Wuhan during the Wuhan military games —- a claim which is devoid of any proof. Chinese government has further denied accepting that the virus originated in China and the WHO report backs China’s hollow claims.

The WHO in its report listed the origins of the virus as one of the “key unknowns”. The WHO had one job to do that is to find the index case, which it grossly failed to do.

Finding the index case is paramount to understand the nature of the virus and accordingly plan containment measures. German Health Minister Jens Spahn said that Germany is at the beginning of a coronavirus epidemic after new cases sprung up that can no longer be traced to the virus’s source in China. “The infection chains are partially no longer trackable, and that is a new thing,” Spahn said. “Large numbers of people have had contact with the patients, and that is a big change to the 16 patients we had until now where the chain could be traced back to the origin in China.”

TheHill reports that how the WHO has turned into an official spokesperson for the Chinese government. When Xi Jinping ordered his health officials to develop drugs using “integrated Chinese traditional herbal medicine and Western medicine,” the WHO’s “Q&A on COVID19” immediately changed a vital piece of information in the section which pointed out the list of measures deemed ineffective against the coronavirus.

Before Xi Jinping’s support for traditional herbal medicine, the WHO listed four items which were deemed ineffective against the virus which were namely, smoking, wearing multiple masks, taking antibiotics, and traditional herbal remedies. The publication has now removed the mention of traditional herbal remedies from the list.

It is appalling to see that Dr Tedros who is not a medicinal doctor occupy the prestigious position of the director-general of the WHO. Dr Tedros lacks any global health management experience which has become glaringly true and was elected to his position in the WHO in 2017. 

He was the former minister of health and minister of foreign affairs for Ethiopia, and therein lies why the WHO is pandering to the Chinese propaganda. China has invested (another example of debt-trap diplomacy) heavily in Ethiopia thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative and has emerged as China’s point of contact in Africa deservingly getting the tag of East Africa’s “Little China”.

Dr Tedros is also an executive member of an Ethiopian party which is listed as a perpetrator in the Global Terrorism Database. Hence, it comes as no surprise that Tedros attempted to appoint the barbarian and the then-dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe as WHO’s goodwill ambassador.

Even today, the WHO and Dr Tedros instead of focusing on containing the virus are slamming Trump for calling spade a spade and naming the virus as the Chinese virus.

While the WHO might be claiming moral high ground as they claim to stand against ‘stigmatizing’ attitudes by refusing to name the virus after its place of origin. On the contrary, it is a norm to name the virus after the place of origin.

As was the case with Ebola and Nipah, the viruses were named after the places of origin. Diseases such as the West Nile virus, Guinea worm and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Japanese Encephalitis and the Spanish Flu are all named after its place of origin or the areas most affected by the disease. The WHO broke this practice when it came to the Wuhan virus. 

The collusion between Dr Tedros and Xi Jinping has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and while Xi Jinping can never be held accountable, Dr Tedros must face the consequences of his actions which has affected millions across the globe and perhaps spiralled the global economy into a state of recession.