Ignoring WHO was a good call

The reported willingness of the Chinese Communist Party to allow “a review by the World Health Organisation’’ into the origins of COVID-19 “at an appropriate time” does not appear to amount to much of a concession. After the WHO’s botched handling of the pandemic, any inquiry it ran would be unlikely to provide the independent, scrutiny Scott Morrison has called for.

Beginning with his fawning praise of China’s “transparency” after meeting President Xi Jinping in Beijing in January, the WHO’s Ethiopian director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been consistently wrong. With cases exceeding four million worldwide, with 280,443 deaths, and the global economy on its knees, Dr Tedros’s assertion after meeting Mr Xi that “China’s actions actually helped prevent the spread of coronavirus to other countries” was absurd. Likewise his admonition of Australia when, amid protests from Beijing, we closed our border to Chinese flights from February 1. That, Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday, was perhaps our most important decision throughout the entire course of the virus, and one of the most important by an Australian government in decades. Dr Tedros, as Beijing’s apologist, said at the time that Australia’s action was “likely to cause more harm than good”. The WHO’s willingness to do the CCP’s bidding has been evident in relation to Taiwan, which has had only 440 cases and six deaths. Taiwan was the first to suspect COVID-19 could be transmitted from human to human and reported that to the WHO in December. Its early warning was ignored, with dire results.

The Prime Minister’s push for an inquiry is gaining momentum ahead of the World Health Assembly, a virtual gathering of the WHO’s 194 members, on May 18. The EU, in consultation with Australia, has drafted a resolution calling for an evaluation of lessons learned from the world’s response to COVID-19. China, reportedly, is taking part in discussions about a final draft. Whatever form the resolution takes, it must not let China escape scrutiny. A whitewash is not what the world needs. As Trade Minister Simon Birmingham says, reports that China will slap tariffs on Australian barley following Mr Morrison’s call are deeply concerning.