Rita Panahi: World Health Organisation has a litany of failures to its name
More than four months into this global crisis and we cannot be sure if Wuhan coronavirus originated from a wet market or a bio-lab. Perhaps we’d have some clarity if the WHO wasn’t beholden to China, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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The World Health Organisation has been exposed as dangerously inept, politicised and unfit to discharge its considerable duties.
Calls by the Prime Minister to give the WHO new sweeping powers seem counterintuitive given one of the reasons Australia has succeeded in crushing the curve, other than the good fortune of being an island, is Scott Morrison disregarded the WHO’s advice and acted early.
From the start of the coronavirus crisis the WHO has kowtowed to China and uncritically accepted the many lies of the regime. In December, as China arrested whistleblower doctors and ordered labs to destroy samples, the WHO did nothing but praise the communist dictatorship.
The WHO refused to listen to Taiwanese authorities which in December warned of the disease’s spread and potential of human-to-human transmission. In mid-January, the WHO were still spreading Chinese propaganda there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”.
On January 23 Beijing banned travel from the coronavirus epicentre to the rest of China but allowed travel from the Hubei region to the rest of the world. Again, the WHO did nothing.
When Australia and the US imposed travel bans against China in late January they did so against the WHO’s advice.
Indeed, in February WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said travel bans would increase “fear and stigma, with little public health benefit”. He praised China’s “transparency” and claimed the virus’ spread was “minimal and slow”. That dodgy advice continued in March when the director general said: “COVID-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick.”
The WHO failed to declare a pandemic until March 11.
To round up the litany of failure, the WHO last week supported reopening China’s wet markets, which have been blamed for multiple pandemics, including COVID-19. But more than four months into this global crisis and we cannot be sure if Wuhan coronavirus originated from a wet market or a poorly run bio-lab.
Perhaps we’d have some clarity if the WHO wasn’t beholden to China. President Donald Trump has halted US funding to the WHO but despite harsh criticism from our politicians Australia will continue to hand over more than $50 million a year.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist