Key points for USA leaving World Health Organisation: May 18th 2020

February 8th 2021 - Excerpts from Donald Trump’s original letter May 18th 2020

December 30, 2019, the World Health Organization office in Beijing knew that there was a “major public health” concern in Wuhan. Between December 26 and December 30, China's media highlighted evidence of a new virus emerging from Wuhan based on patient data sent to multiple Chinese genomics companies. During this period, Dr. Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubai Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, told China's health authorities that a new coronavirus was causing a novel disease that was, at the time, afflicting approximately 180 patients.

December 31st 2019 Taiwanese authorities had communicated information to the World Health Organization indicating human-to-human transmission of a new virus but the World Health Organization chose not to share any of this critical information with the rest of the world. The International Health Regulations require countries to report the risk of a health emergency within 24 hours but China did not inform the World Health Organization of Wuhan’s several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin until December 31, 2019 over a month after China had its first case.

According to Dr. Zhang Yongzhen of the Shanghai Public Health Clinic Center, he told Chinese authorities on January 5, 2020 that he had sequenced the genome of the virus. There was no publication of this information until six days later on January 11, 2020, when Dr. Zhang self-posted it online. The next day, Chinese authorities closed his lab for “rectification.” The World Health Organization acknowledged Dr. Zhang’s posting was a great act of “transparency,” but the World Health Organization has been silent both with respect to the closure of Dr. Zhang's lab and his assertion that he had notified Chinese authorities of his breakthrough six days earlier.

On January 14, 2020, the World Health Organization gratuitously reaffirmed China’s now-debunked claim that the coronavirus could not be transmitted between humans, stating: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) identified in Wuhan, China.” This assertion was in direct conflict with censored reports from Wuhan.

On January 21, 2020, President Xi Jinping of China reportedly pressured WHO not to declare the coronavirus outbreak an emergency. January 22nd 2020, WHO told the world that the coronavirus did not pose a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. January 30, 2020, overwhelming evidence to the contrary forced the WHO to reverse that statement.

January 28, 2020, after meeting with President Xi in Beijing, WHO praised the Chinese government for its “transparency” with respect to the coronavirus and announced that China had set a “new standard for outbreak control” and “bought the world time.” WHO did not mention that China had silenced or punished several doctors for speaking out about the virus and restricted Chinese institutions from publishing information about it.

January 30 3030, WHO belatedly declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern but failed to press China for the timely admittance of a World Health Organization team of international medical experts. As a result, this critical team did not arrive in China until two weeks later (February 16, 2020.)  At this point the team was not allowed to visit Wuhan until the final days of their visit. The World Health Organization was silent when China denied two American members of the team access to Wuhan entirely.

The WHO praised China’s strict domestic travel restrictions but were against Trump's closing of the United States border and his domestic travel ban from China. Trump implemented this ban against the WHO's wishes. This political gamesmanship with the US and other countries proved deadly and delayed imposing life-saving restrictions on travel to and from China.

February 3, 2020, WHO reinforced their position stating that due to China's excellent handling of the virus travel restrictions were “causing more harm than good” despite the fact that the WHO knew before Wuhan's lockdown Chinese authorities had allowed more than five million people to leave the city, many bound for international destinations globally.

February 3, 2020, China was pressuring countries to lift or forestall travel restrictions. This pressure campaign was supported by WHO's incorrect statements that the spread of the virus outside of China was “minimal and slow” and that “the chances of getting this going to anywhere outside China [were] very low.”

March 3, 2020, the World Health Organization cited official Chinese data to downplay the very serious risk of asymptomatic spread stating that “COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza” and that unlike influenza this disease was not primarily driven by “people who are infected but not yet sick.” The World Health Organization stated that it “showed that only one percent of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within two days.” Upon WHO citing this data, experts from Japan and South Korea amongst others vigorously questioned the WHO's assertions. It is now clear that China's assertions that were repeated to the world by the World Health Organization were totally inaccurate.

March 11, 2020 WHO declared an epidemic. By this time covid had killed more than 4,000 people and infected more than 100,000 people in at least 114 countries around the world.

April 11, 2020, several African Ambassadors wrote to the Chinese Foreign Ministry in regard to the discriminatory treatment of Africans related to the pandemic in Guangzhou and other cities in China. WHO were aware that Chinese authorities were carrying out a campaign of forced quarantines, evictions, and refusal of services against the nationals of these countries. The WHO has never commented on China's racially discriminatory actions.

However, when Taiwan complained about WHO's mishandling of the pandemic WHO labelled Taiwan as 'racist'.

Throughout this pandemic the World Health Organization has been insistent on praising China for its alleged “transparency.” despite China being anything but transparent. In early January China ordered samples of the virus to be destroyed depriving the world of critical information. China continues to undermine the International Health Regulations by refusing to share accurate and timely data, viral samples and isolates. China continues to withhold vital information about the virus and its origins as well as continuing to deny international access to their scientists and relevant facilities whilst openly threatening any country that insists on this.

The World Health Organization has failed to publicly call on China to allow for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus despite it's endorsement for doing so by its own Emergency Committee. The World Health Organization’s failure to do this prompted WHO member states to adopt the “COVID-19 Response Resolution" at the 2020 World Health Assembly which reiterated the call by the United States and other member states for an impartial, independent and comprehensive review of exactly how the World Health Organization handled the crisis. The resolution also called for an investigation into the origins of the virus which is necessary for the world to understand how best to counter the disease. This has yet to happen.