US, China must show ‘honest leadership’ versus virus: WHO

Bloomberg

The US and China should work together to show “honest leadership” or risk transforming the pandemic into a bigger crisis, the head of the World Health Organization said in unusually stern comments on the two
superpowers.
At the height of the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union still came together to fight and eradicate smallpox, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. He urged all countries, political parties and the media to stop trying to use the coronavirus issue to divide people.
“If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicising it,” Tedros said at a briefing in Geneva. “No using Covid-19 to score political points.”
US President Donald Trump said that the WHO “blew it” and had given bad advice on travel restrictions. He threatened to cut funding, saying that the Geneva-based organisation favours China. That country’s foreign ministry has suggested that the US army might have caused the outbreak.
Tedros said the WHO tries to treat everyone equally, and will later assess successes and failures. The organisation officially informed all member states of the outbreak on January 5 and gave guidance on how to test for it by January 10.
China’s foreign ministry on Thursday said it hoped all countries would stand together and help each other. “China will continue to support the WHO in playing a leading role in the fight against Covid-19,” ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
The WHO declared a global health emergency in late January, when the world outside China had reported 98 cases and yet no fatalities. Hours later, the US told Americans not to travel to China because of the risk of infection, and for weeks, Trump referred to the disease as the “Chinese virus.”
The WHO plans to update its strategy and give an estimate of the financial needs for the next phase in coming days, Tedros said. Financial resources won’t be a problem as long as countries are united, he added.
“When there are cracks at the national level and global level, that’s when the virus succeeds,” Tedros said.

Taiwan rejects WHO claim of racist campaign against Tedros
Bloomberg

Taiwan hit back at the head of the WHO as a dispute over the self-ruled island’s exclusion from the body threatened to overshadow efforts to rein in the spread of the coronavirus.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry demanded an apology for what it called unnecessary and comments from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Tedros, who is Ethiopian, had earlier accused Taiwan of being behind a racist campaign against him and Africans in general.
“Without having checked the facts, Tedros’s unprovoked and untrue accusations not only differ from reality, they have also seriously harmed our government and our people,” the ministry said in a statement. “This kind of slander is extremely irresponsible.”
President Tsai Ing-wen expressed “strong protest” against Tedros’s allegation that it was behind racist
attacks.