WHO Ignored Warning About Coronavirus in December, Bombshell Email Shows
Taiwan issued unheeded warning to World Health Organization about new virus in China
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In December, the World Health Organization (WHO) received a warning about a deadly new coronavirus outbreak in China but chose to ignore it, a bombshell email released by Taiwan shows.
WHO is under fire yet again after the contents of the December email inquiring about the person to person spread of COVID-19 have been made public.
The Taiwanese government says its inquiries about the Chinese virus were ignored by WHO and they were denied adequate information to fight the coronavirus.
Taiwan is accusing WHO of downplaying the severity and spread of the coronavirus in an attempt to pander to China.
Health officials in Taiwan sounded the alarm to WHO about the new virus in China.
They warned the organization that they were aware of an outbreak of at least seven cases of atypical pneumonia in Wuhan where the virus originated.
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When asked about the cases by the media, Taiwan said China's health authorities said "the cases were believed not SARS; however samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment," according to the contents of an email sent by Taiwan's Center for Disease Control and Prevention to the WHO on Dec. 31.
"I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us," the email said.
The facts regarding Taiwan’s email to alert WHO to possible danger of #COVID19#email內容 #TaiwanCanHelp #TaiwanIsHelping @WHO
— MOHW of Taiwan (@MOHW_Taiwan) April 11, 2020
英文新聞稿：https://t.co/AvyHulhrlU pic.twitter.com/nYvmY4R2ao
Taiwan is located about 80 miles off China's coast but has declared itself an independent nation for over 70 years.
China, however, has refused to acknowledge Taiwan's sovereignty and consistently fights to bring them back under Beijing's control.
As a result, China has successfully persuaded WHO to exclude Taiwan from the organization.
WHO denied that Taiwan ever alerted them to the potential person-to-person spread of the virus, but Taiwan's CDC said that because they specifically mentioned "atypical pneumonia"-- reminiscent of SARS, which is transmitted between human contact-- "public health professionals could discern from this wording that there was a real possibility of human-to-human transmission of the disease," they said in a press release.
"However, because at the time there were as yet no cases of the disease in Taiwan, we could not state directly and conclusively that there had been human-to-human transmission," Taiwan's CDC said.
Taiwan said that the WHO and the Chinese CDC both refused to provide adequate information that could have potentially prepared the government for the impact of the virus sooner.
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WHO ignored warnings from Taiwan and continued to reiterate China's false talking points -- that "there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission" of the novel pathogen even as late as Jan 14.
In addition, the WHO failed to mandate that Chinese officials share the viral strains that would have allowed diagnostic tests to have been produced significantly earlier worldwide.
Tensions between Taiwan and the WHO have caused President Trump to consider pulling funding from the U.N. agency, which receives the bulk of its money from U.S taxpayers' dollars.
Trump said Monday during the White House's coronavirus task force briefing that he expects to reach a decision by the end of the week -- days after he vowed that his administration would be "looking into" WHO's operations.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has accused the U.S. of "politicizing" its handling of the virus and said that doing so would result in "more body bags."
Currently, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 118,854 people in the world and infected over 2 million others.
