Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, World Health Organisation’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is under pressure to quit over claims that he took China’s coronavirus statistics, which has been highly suspected, at face value.
Despite reports that several doctors who tried to raise an alarm on social media were silenced by authorities, Tedros praised the ‘transparency’ of China’s response to the pandemic in its early stages.
Tedros has been accused of warning other countries against travel bans in February when China’s infection count was witnessing a massive spike, claiming that lockdown measures were enough.
Tedros concluded that China had ‘bought time for the rest of the world’, after he sent officials to evaluate the outbreak in the country later in February.
Following the accusations, a US senator has called for his resignation after reports claimed that the CIA found ‘a large-scale cover-up’ of China’s outbreak. On a Change.org petition demanding Tedros’ resignation, there are nearly 8,00,000 signatures.
‘Dr Tedros deceived the world. This deception cost lives,’ said Republican Martha McSally.
Reportedly, CIA officials have repeatedly warned the White House claiming that China was understating the number of cases and deaths.
Chinese officials have been accused of putting the world on the backfoot because until the virus had already caused massive damage and spread across the country, scientists had no other data to look at.
Tedros has been slammed for failing to address criticism of China’s figures. In March, he hailed China’s ‘amazing achievement’ after no domestic cases were reported for the first time.
Denying that it doctored COVID-19 statistics, China accused the US intelligence community of fabricating the reports.
Tedros’ allies have reportedly suggested that he was silent on the issue in an attempt to ensure China keeps sharing critical information.
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