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Accountability Investigation of WHO/China

"There was a failure by this organization to obtain the information that the world needed, and that failure cost many lives."
"We must be frank about one of the primary reasons this outbreak spun out of control."
"There was a failure by this organization to obtain the information that the world needed, and that failure cost many lives."
Alex Azar, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services

"[I welcome] a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation [of the WHO's response to the global pandemic]."
"WHO sounded the alarm early, and we sounded it often. We notified countries, issued guidance for health workers within ten days, and declared a global health emergency -- our highest level of alert -- on the [30th] of January."
"At the time, there were less than 100 cases and no deaths outside China."
"We want accountability more than anyone. We will continue providing strategic leadership to coordinate the global response."
Dr.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general, World Health Organization

Before the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the WHO's willingness to approve a proposal put forward by over 120 countries that had been tabled by the European Union and Australia, unsupported by China, for an investigation into how the World Health Organization responded to the emerging epidemic of a strange new virus in Wuhan, China, and how it had alerted the world, finally declaring SARS-CoV-2 a global pandemic.

The WHO itself, according to Mr. Tedros planned to launch its own enquiry: "an independent evaluation at the earliest appropriate moment". According to The U.S.Secretary of Health and Human Services, the WHO had failed in its primary duty of alerting the world of a pandemic that had "spun out of control", and represented a costly "failure" by the WHO. The WHO's own independent oversight body had produced an early report into the handling of the crisis by the WHO, concluding it had "demonstrated leadership". Its performance should be reviewed, it elaborated, but not during the "heat of the response".

The WHO assembly was addressed by videolink by Chinese President Xi Jinping of his intention to support a "comprehensive review" of the pandemic once it had been brought under control. Responding to critics asserting that Beijing had covered up the outbreak at its emergence in Wuhan, Xi responded that his country had behaved with "openness, transparency and responsibility", having given data to the WHO and other countries in a "timely fashion".

He took the opportunity to mollify some of his critics through the announcement of a $2-billion investment in support of ongoing research into the source of the virus, while pledging that vaccines would be globally available when possible, while encouraging sharing best practices. The U.S., still the WHO's major financial supporter, has seen President Donald Trump threatening to withdraw funding while accusing the organization of mismanaging its response to the pandemic, including bias on its part toward China.

According to Chinese state media, other nations are maligning China by insisting on an investigation for political reasons, and slamming the U.S. for using China as a political punching bag, in trying to distract from its inadequate internal reactions to the outbreak that has caused more cases in the United States and a greater number of deaths there, than China itself had experienced.

People's Liberation Army soldiers stand at attention in front of photo of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 20. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images