The global coronavirus pandemic has been exacerbated by polititicisation, the World Health Organization’s director general said Monday, as he warned its effects will be felt “for decades to come.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was speaking at a virtual health forum organised by the World Government Summit, warning the greatest threat facing the world is not the virus itself, but “the lack of global solidarity and global leadership.”
“We cannot defeat this pandemic with a divided world,” he said. “The politicisation of the pandemic has exacerbated it. None of us is safe until all of us are safe.”
That lament failed to take into account his own poor performance in executing a world response to the crisis:
Tedros spoke just 24-hours after he was due to deliver a virtual 2020 commencement speech at China’s Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management (Tsinghua SEM), as Breitbart News reported.
Tsinghua, located in Beijing, is one of China’s most prestigious universities and the alma mater of China’s dictator Xi Jinping, with whom Tedros enjoys a close mutual relationship.
So close is that link between Tedros and China, it was reported early in the pandemic that Xi Jinping personally asked Tedros to delay key warnings about the coronavirus spread.
Tedros did what he was told by Beijing.
Soon after the W.H.O. claimed “no clear evidence” existed that the Chinese coronavirus was contagious.
That has since been tragically proven to be demonstrably wrong.
The COVID-19 illness, which has now killed more than 4,65,000 people and infected almost nine million worldwide, is surging in the Americas and parts of Asia, even as Europe starts to ease restrictive measures.
Lockdowns imposed to halt the spread of the virus have caused crippling economic damage, but the W.H.O. says the pandemic still poses a major threat.
“The pandemic is still accelerating,” Tedros told the virtual conference.
“We know that the pandemic is much more than a health crisis, it is an economic crisis, a social crisis, and in many countries a political crisis,” he said.
“Its effects will be felt for decades to come.”
White House
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