The WHO could have declared a state of emergency earlier. Instead it delayed the announcement, praised China’s transparency, and recommended countries allow planes potentially carrying a deadly virus continue to fly freely. The WHO waited until the 2019-nCoV virus had spread to 18 nations before declaring an emergency. Wasn’t it an emergency with the first foreign case or the first case of symptomless transmission?
Follow the chain, or rather the Belt and Road
The WHO Director General is Tedros Adhanom of Ethiopia. From 2012 – 2016 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the one party government that rules Ethiopia. This is the same party that borrowed billions from China to build a railway line, then struggles to pay it back. In Africa, Ethiopia is the second largest debtor nation to China — owing $13 billion. As Foreign Minister Adhanom praised China for African loans, looks like he was the man to line them up. We also note that the one-party ruling party of Ethiopia is called the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front which was once a Marxist Lenninist far left group — labels it dropped after the Soviet Union collapsed. (Thanks Maurice for these tips).
Suddenly there might be a reason why Tedros went out of his way to praise President Xi of China, even though medical experts were already warning that there were thousands more victims, that China was hiding the severity, and punishing its doctors for trying to warn people.
Last Thursday ABC News Australia was broadcasting some of the rapturous praise below. I didn’t hear one word about the Ethiopians debts or any potential conflict of interest. How was the ABC serving Australians by uncritically parroting the lines of the Ethiopian apologist for China without doing the basic research themselves? There were no hard questions from the BBC either which refers to the WHO as the “global health officials”.
Tedros Adhanom
Does the WHO Director General serve the world or China?
It’s rare in politics to hear such an abject extended grovelling rave:
Xi Jinping meets with visiting World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
…Tedros said it is admirable that the Chinese government has shown its solid political resolve and taken timely and effective measures in dealing with the epidemic.
President Xi’s personal guidance and deployment show his great leadership capability, Tedros said.
He said that China has released information in an open and transparent manner, identified the pathogen in a record-short time and shared the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus in a timely manner with the WHO and other countries.
China’s measures are not only protecting its people, but also protecting the people in the whole world, he said.
Hailing the high speed and massive scale of China’s moves are rarely seen in the world, Tedros said it showed China’s efficiency and the advantages of China’s system. The experience of China is worth learning for other countries, he said, adding that he believes the measures China has taken will effectively control and finally prevail over the epidemic.
The WHO firmly supports China’s measures against the epidemic and stands ready to enhance cooperation with China and provide all necessary assistance, Tedros said. He said the WHO will make assessment based on science and facts, and opposes overreaction and groundless accusations.
The WHO speaks highly of China’s major role in and great contribution to the cause of global public health, and is ready to further conduct strategic cooperation with China, said Tedros.
Now ponder that Australia’s Chief Medical Officer — Prof Brendan Murphy — told us we should keep our borders open last week because the WHO advised it was better. The ABC didn’t ask him any hard questions on that either. Should we be getting advice from the former Ethiopian Foreign Minister of a government that borrowed billions from China?
Last Thursday Prof Murphy was explaining how there was no evidence of transmission from human to human “in this country” as if the virus touring downunder might not do the exact same kind of transmission as the Chinese one.
Protecting Australia amounted to teams jumping on planes with thermometers and brochures and hoping anyone who was infected, but didn’t know it, would be nice enough not to share their germs. It’s pathetic:
…every flight from China now is being met by border security officers who are going on the plane and distributing information to every passenger trying to identify any unwell passengers. The airlines are also required to identify any unwell passengers and if they are unwell, there’s a process of screening them. Every passenger on those flights from China is given an information sheet in Chinese and Mandarin, sorry, Mandarin and English and told to undertake, to watch themselves, and to contact their doctor or their emergency department should they develop symptoms over the following 14 days. In addition, because there are some people who could come from China via other countries, and other ports within 14 days, we are now making announcements in the arrivals halls of airports, again in English and Mandarin, pointing out that anyone who may have come from China from whatever flight or whatever port they’re on, pointing out the risks and identifying that there is printed material available for them to collect at the airport if they have come from China so that all of the people who may have come from China can get that information. Again, we have no evidence there’s a risk to the Australian public. There’s no human to human transmission that’s been identified in this country.
—Chief Medical Officers Update, Jan 27th, 2020
Australians are the masters of quarantine — we stop visitors with wooden sticks, but not novel diseases. Last week it was harder to bring in cut-flowers to Australia than to import a deadly new human virus with no known cure.
Sack Tedros Adhanom
There’s a petition to sack Tedros Adhanom which started last week and already has 135,000 signatures. Among his other achievements, by the way, he’s the man who appointed Robert Mugabe as the Goodwill Ambassador for the WHO.
Call for the resignation of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General
Not only do we not need Tedros Adhanom, we don’t need the WHO, The UN, or The ABC and BBC either. None of them were serving Australians, Brits, or Americans, or even Ethiopians. How many will now succumb to Coronavirus that might have been saved?
Killed by Big Government.