An investigation by The Sunday Times today raises serious concerns that a major campaign by the Chinese state to secure influence over the WHO led the agency to blow the world’s only chance of stopping the Covid-19 pandemic
thetimes.co.uk/article/china-…
Financial and diplomatic pressure allegedly directed from Beijing has seen a body which took strong and successful action to suppress the Sars epidemic in 2003 transform into an organisation which praised North Korea’s health system and made Robert Mugabe a goodwill ambassador
When the Covid-19 pandemic began, the WHO’s leadership prioritised China’s economic interests over halting the spread of the virus with catastrophic results.
Why did the WHO malfunction so badly?
2017
Ethiopian foreign minister Tedros Adhanom – a close ally and friend to China – is propelled to power at the top of the WHO after Beijing uses its financial and diplomatic muscle to back his campaign
Jan 2020
China attempts to cover-up the Covid-19 outbreak by suppressing whistleblowers, scrubbing social media and withholding evidence about the virus. Tedros later praises Beijing for its openness and transparency
Jan 28 2020
Tedros travels to Beijing four weeks after first being warned about the pandemic and gives thanks to president Xi Jinping on behalf of the world for containing the Covid-19 virus in China. It is “rare leadership”, Tedros says
May-July 2020
Nations instruct Tedros to investigate the origins of Covid-19 but a secret deal in Beijing rules out a probe into the theory most hated by China: a lab leak. Instead, WHO will look at China’s pet theory that the virus was imported on frozen food
Aug-Nov 2020
The WHO allows China a veto over selection of the mission’s experts. US experts are rejected in favour of Peter Daszak, a fierce opponent of the laboratory theory who is a described as a “collaborator” with the Wuhan Institute of Virology
thetimes.co.uk/article/china-…
Jan 2021
The US government discloses intelligence that three WIV researchers fell ill with Covid-19-like symptoms in autumn of 2019. It urges the WHO inquiry team, now in Wuhan, to investigate the lab’s experiments which made coronaviruses more infectious to humans
Feb 2021
Tedros arranges for the joint mission - with no expertise to audit labs - to question Wuhan institute bosses. They are given no access to records and have to accept the word of those they question. The team concludes that the lab leak theory is “extremely unlikely”
March 2021 onwards
After the US raises “deep concerns” about the team’s findings, Tedros changes his approach and declares all origin theories should remain on the table. China, however, refuses to participate in further inquiries on its soil
China’s interference with the WHO over more than a decade is claimed to have blown the only chance the world had of avoiding the pandemic and now means we may never know how the virus started
thetimes.co.uk/article/china-…
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