TThe World Health Organization backed down on its claim that the Chinese government alerted the United Nations agency to the coronavirus outbreak.
The WHO quietly updated its “Timeline of the WHO Response to COVID-19” on Tuesday after the House Foreign Affairs Committee Republican meeting in mid-June. Interim report on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic (led by the ranking member and the chairman of the Chinese task force, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas), who concluded that “despite the public reporting otherwise … China never notified the WHO of the outbreak in Wuhan. ” The change was discovered by McCaul and first reported by the Washington Free beacon.
“I am glad to see that the WHO and the Chinese Communist Party have read my interim report on the origins of the pandemic and are finally admitting to the world the truth: the CCP never informed the WHO of the virus outbreak in violation of WHO regulations. McCaul said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “The question now is whether the CCP will continue its false propaganda campaign that continues to claim that it has warned the world, or whether they will stay clean and start working with the global health community to get to the bottom of this deadly pandemic.”
The June McCaul report said the WHO learned of the coronavirus outbreak when Chinese media reported that an outbreak of atypical pneumonia began leaking online and that the organization also discovered a publication in the Emerging Disease Monitoring Program, a United States-based open access platform for early outbreak intelligence on the last day of 2019.
The previous iteration of the timeline said that the “Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China reported a group of pneumonia cases in Wuhan.” The updated timeline indicates that the WHO office in China “picked up a media statement from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from its website on cases of ‘viral pneumonia’ in Wuhan” and that the platform for WHO Open Source Epidemic Intelligence “also picked up a media report on ProMED … on the same group of ‘unknown cause pneumonia’ cases in Wuhan.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tried to downplay the early warnings about the outbreak that Taiwan says it provided to the organization, stressing that the “first report” came from Wuhan, where the outbreak is believed to have originated.
“The first report came from Wuhan, from China itself, so Taiwan was only asking for clarification and, as some people claimed, Taiwan did not report any person-to-person transmission; this has to be clear, “Tedros said in April, adding:” So the report came first from China, that’s number one, from Wuhan. ”
There is evidence that China covered up the spread of the coronavirus, denounced whistleblowers, intimidated doctors, misled WHO, and blocked outside health experts. China knew in late 2019 that a person-to-person transmission was taking place, but on January 14, the WHO tweeted: “Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of person-to-person transmission.”
While Tedros and the WHO publicly praised China’s response, internal recordings show that WHO leaders privately complained about China’s opacity.
In April, it was reported that the United States Intelligence Community believed that the Chinese Communist Party played down the outbreak and that China continued to deceive the world.
Numerous media outlets reported that China directly alerted the WHO to the coronavirus outbreak on December 31, and the WHO never publicly attempted to correct the registry.
China repeatedly claimed that it had reported the outbreak to the WHO, including in early June through the state government. China DailyBut Beijing seems to have backtracked this statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian was asked about the McCaul report in late June and replied that “this so-called report … disseminates disinformation in an attempt to discredit China.” But when the Chinese official went through a long timeline of China’s alleged response, he withdrew China’s claims about reporting to the WHO on December 31.
The House of Representatives report in June said China “has an overwhelming responsibility” for the coronavirus outbreak to become a pandemic after the country’s efforts to hide its “new and widespread nature.” The 50-page report highlighted “China’s failure to share accurate information” and its “suppression of voices seeking to warn the world.” Republican investigators concluded that Chinese President Xi Jinping knew that a pandemic was underway weeks before the public was warned.
The WHO “allowed the CCP cover-up … while praising the CCP’s response,” according to Republican Party researchers, who also determined that “the global COVID-19 pandemic could have been avoided if the CCP had acted transparently and responsibly. “
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