Thread by @kakape

In December, I had a chance to sit down with head of @WHO, @DrTedros, for 90 minutes. We talked about his goals and the challenges he was facing. We couldn’t know, that at that very moment his greatest challenge yet was already building in China: #2019nCoV sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/m…

@WHO @DrTedros I’ve followed up with him since, observed him at a dozen press conferences and talked to experts from around the world, how they think he has been doing in his job. Yesterday, after he saw off the first 3 members of the expert team at Geneva airport, he called me for a long chat.

@WHO @DrTedros What have I learnt from all this?
1. That the world mostly cares about the @WHO in the middle of a crisis. Before #2019nCoV this was going to be a story about pushing universal health care, fighting anti-vaccine sentiment, growing the budget and reforming the structure of WHO.

@WHO @DrTedros All of that’s important and it would have made for a great profile, read by few people. Instead the inevitable happened and a lot more people want to know who @DrTedros is, but the focus is narrowed once again to the politics of a potential pandemic.

@WHO @DrTedros It’s almost laughable how predictable this is. As Tedros has often said, it is a question of when, not if, the next dangerous pathogen spreads around the world. And yet, here we are again.

@WHO @DrTedros As Camus wrote: “Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky."

@WHO @DrTedros 2. That @drtedros is as @LawrenceGostin says "in a near impossible situation”: Because @WHO has no real power, he needs to keep China happy and cooperating, if he wants to make sure the WHO stays informed and has any influence on the unfolding epidemic.

@WHO @DrTedros @LawrenceGostin On the other hand, given what we know about how China mishandled the early stages of the epidemic (read @juliaoftoronto’s new piece for a recap), Tedros’s emphatic praise of China risks eroding the trust of billions of people in the @WHO.

@WHO @DrTedros @LawrenceGostin @juliaoftoronto I’m glad, I’m not the one having to juggle this. But I think what @alexandraphelan told me weighs heavily: That the endorsement of China’s unprecedented actions (which likely impact human rights more than limit spread of the virus) could further erode @WHO’s influence.

@WHO @DrTedros @LawrenceGostin @juliaoftoronto @alexandraphelan And I look at the face of Li Wenliang and I remember Tedros saying “You cannot care about millions if you don’t care about a poor human being dying in front of you” and I realize that I just don’t have any answers.

@WHO @DrTedros @LawrenceGostin @juliaoftoronto @alexandraphelan I will leave it at this for now. It’s been a long day.