Did China ask WHO to delay global warning on COVID-19?

New Delhi, May 12: The World Health Organization (WHO)’s role in the Coronavirus pandemic is getting murkier. With President Trump stopping all financial aid to the WHO, it has already started looking towards China and India for financial assistance.

But the German media has come out with a new expose on WHO. German News outlet Der Spiegel on Saturday claimed that the global health body had actually held back the warning on the COVID-19 pandemic on instructions from the Chinese leadership endorsing the allegations leveled against it by the US President.

Der Spiegel's report on Saturday claimed that Chinese Premier XI Jinping had ‘personally’ asked the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom to ‘delay global warning’ against the novel coronavirus pandemic that first broke in Wuhan city of China. The report claimed that the Chinese premier had asked WHO chief to ‘delay a global warning’ about the threat of COVID-19 during a conversation in January.

“On January 21, China’s leader Xi Jinping asked WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to hold back information about a human-to-human transmission and to delay a pandemic warning”, the report further stated.

The German news outlet’s report was based on intelligence from the Bundesnachtendienst (BND), the German Intelligence Service. The agency alleged that China urged the WHO chief to withhold the information about the human transmission of the China virus. With that, the world has lost a precious period of 4 to 6 weeks to fight the virus as the WHO delayed the warning. Today the delay has cost dearly in infecting over 40 lakh people globally with 2.8 lakh death being reported from various countries.

The global health body, however, denied the allegations leveled against it by the German news outlet describing it as ‘unfounded’ and ‘untrue’. The WHO denied any telephonic conversion ever took place between Chinese Premier and WHO Chief.

“Such ‘inaccurate report’ will hinder the global fight against the Chinese virus”, the WHO said adding that China confirmed the ‘human-to-human’ transmission aspect of the coronavirus to it on January 20.

Trump lashes out at WHO: Meanwhile, the US President Donald Trump said that his government was examining all scientific evidence to determine the origin of the novel coronavirus. Replying to a question from a journalist, Trump asserted that he had information of high degree confidence that the Coronavirus originated in a Wuhan lab in China. “Yes, I have”, the President said.

Lashing out at WHO President Trump said that the global health body should be “ashamed of themselves” because they are like the “public relations agency’ for China. President Trump said that WHO should not be making excuses when people (China) make horrible mistakes.

China agrees to COVID-19 review: After initial resistance and subsequent global appeal to isolate China holding it solely responsible for the pandemic outbreak, China now seems to have relented and agreed to have a review of the pandemic. On Friday, China agreed to a review by an “open, transparent and inclusive” WHO panel constituted only under the leadership of the controversial WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at an ‘appropriate time’, following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.