WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns not to ‘politicize the virus’ or you’ll have ‘more body bags’
So now the WHO is offering up threats for those questioning the origins of the coronavirus, nicknamed the Chinse Coronavirus, the Wuhan Virus, or the CCP Virus to point to the outbreak’s place of origin.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general on Wednesday warned world leaders against politicizing the novel coronavirus after President Trump threatened to cut off funding to the organization due its handling of the outbreak.
Speaking at a virtual press conference, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged leaders to focus on saving lives, arguing that political attacks would only lead to “more body bags.”
“Please do not politicize this virus,” he said. “If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you do it. If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it.”
He continued: “Without unity, we assure you even any country that may have a better system will be in trouble and more crisis. That’s our message. Unity at the national level,” he said. “No need to use COVID to score political points. No need. You have many other ways to prove yourselves.”
photo/ donkeyhotey
Yesterday Trump repeatedly targeted the WHO and China over their early response to COVID-19, claiming the United Nations body is responsible for international public health, and seemed “very biased toward China.”
China has been accused of downplaying the threat of the coronavirus, which is thought to have originated in the city of Wuhan in December.
Trump said that he’d consider a pause of U.S. funding in response. The U.S. is one of the world’s biggest financial contributors to WHO.
“They actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it, and they were wrong,” Trump said at a press conference on Wednesday, referencing his decision to block incoming travel from China. “They’ve been wrong about a lot of things.
“They had a lot of information early, and they didn’t — they seemed to be very China-centric. We have to look into it,” he added.
Tedros said that he expected the U.S. to continue contributing to the organization and thanked the nation for its “generous support so far.”
During his Wednesday remarks, Tedros also noted that Thursday will mark 100 days since WHO was notified about the first cases involving a “pneumonia with unknown cause” in China.
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