Matt Hancock says WHO boss was 'scared stiff' of upsetting China at start of ... trends now
Matt Hancock has revealed he repeatedly tried to convince the World Health Organisation to declare the outbreak of Covid-19 an international emergency – but was ignored because its boss was ‘scared stiff’ of upsetting China.
Writing in his bombshell pandemic diaries, the former health secretary accuses WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of pandering to Beijing because the Communist state helped fund his office.
Mr Hancock claims that he twice telephoned Dr Ghebreyesus in January 2020 about the need for international action on testing and developing vaccines to slow the pandemic.
Dr Ghebreyesus is a long-time friend of China and had even visited President Xi Jinping earlier that month. He has been accused of delaying important decisions after the first cases were discovered in Wuhan, thereby helping to protect the Chinese economy and mask the origins of the virus.
In Mr Hancock’s diaries, serialised in the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, he wrote on January 29, 2020: ‘I called the head of the World Health Organisation to try to persuade him – for the second time - to declare a public health international emergency. But China runs various projects in his private office, so he is scared stiff of upsetting them.’
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO shakes hands with Chinese President Xi in January 2020
Mr Hancock added: ‘My sense is he’s terrified of upsetting Beijing. I asked him about unofficial reports from China that there was asymptomatic transmission and he played it down, blaming “translation issues” as if the glaring lack of information coming out of China is all some kind of perfectly innocent communication problem.
‘Sensing I was a bit sceptical, he doubled down, claiming to be “impressed by their transparency”. What?! The Chinese made their comments about asymptomatic transmission three days ago and the WHO still hasn’t checked if they were reported correctly. Unbelievable! Doesn’t anyone there speak Mandarin?
‘My view is that Tedros is trapped by the politics. While the US and UK are the WHO’s biggest funders, we play with a straight bat.’
He added: ‘It’s going to be a serious issue if we have a global disease and the main global health body adopts the Chinese approach to information flow. If asymptomatic transmission is happening, then the odds are that the disease is already out of control.’
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