Following months of devastation around the globe as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, we may finally learn more about COVID-19’s origins. The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that a team of 10 international scientists will travel to the Chinese city of Wuhan in January to investigate how the virus emerged.

Until now, the Chinese Government has been reluctant to agree to an independent inquiry. It has taken the WHO many months of negotiations to be allowed access to the city.

The Investigation Doesn’t Intend to Blame China

Fabian Leendertz of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute told the BBC that the aim of the inquiry is to try to reduce the risk of a future pandemic, and not to apportion blame. Despite this, it is fair to say that many world leaders believe China is responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak and an insufficient immediate response to it, particularly US President Donald Trump.

The coronavirus pandemic has divided the political spectrum across the globe, with politicians, experts and voters divided over how long lockdown should continue to last for, and whether such a measure was necessary in the first place. Nonetheless, the findings of the WHO’s investigation will bring peace of mind to billions of citizens around the world who are angry and confused about the coronavirus’s origins, and the devastating impact it has had upon their lives.

From the beginning, many contrasting theories have emerged about how the virus started. It was originally traced by some scientists and media outlets to a so-called “wet market” in Wuhan, Hubei province, and it was suggested that this was where COVID-19 made the jump from animals to humans.

Questions About the True Origin of COVID-19 Might Finally be Answered

Research suggests that the coronaviruses capable of infecting humans may have been circulating in bats for decades. In April, suspicions and allegations emerged that COVID-19 might have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.

When the report’s findings are finally published, the impact that it will have on China’s reputation is likely to be devastating.

Recent reports in the Chinese media have suggested that COVID-19 could have originated outside of China, but analysts say that these claims have no foundation and that it is part of a campaign to prevent Beijing’s image from being further damaged abroad.

Prior to this investigation, the coronavirus caused many Western leaders to start taking the threat that China poses to global stability seriously, especially Donald Trump.

Even incoming US President Joe Biden has referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “thug” in the past.

Trump’s stance toward Beijing has transformed American politics for good, and it will be impossible for future presidents to ignore America’s rivalry with China.

China is a Clear and Present Danger to the World

Rather like the US, Australia has engaged in its own cold war with Beijing this year, and the country’s government was rather vocal in calling on the WHO to launch an inquiry into COVID-19’s Chinese origins.

Earlier this month, I wrote that the EU wants to form a new alliance with the US to confront the challenges posed by China. Yet the EU’s dependence upon Chinese investments proves that Brussels’ tough stance toward the Chinese Government will be rather limited, particularly when they are on the verge of signing a fresh investment deal with Beijing.

As of March 2020, the number of countries that have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative stands at 138, and 38 of those nations are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, it is going to be hard for many countries to sever their ties with Beijing, considering how much of the globe depends upon Chinese investments.

It will be a relief for the global population once the coronavirus’s origins become public knowledge, but the greatest long-term challenge for many politicians is how to defeat China. Given how influential Beijing is, that is going to be easier said than done.

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On 17 November 2019, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in China. The media began talking about “a strange pneumonia”, which was gradually infecting the inhabitants of Hubei. Nobody could have imagined what was about to happen in the months to come.

The virus moves rapidly, too rapidly. Chinese leader Xi Jinping declares war on the coronavirus “demon,” however China’s efforts – too late and insufficient – are unsuccessful in stopping contagion. In just a few months the coronavirus hits Germany, Italy, India and the United States. Whereas in the 14th century it took the plague 16 years to reach Europe, COVID-19 travelled the same route in just a few months. Times have changed and trade between countries, even very distant countries, is increasingly frequent, and especially fast.

And so the virus was free to spread.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the pandemic: “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries climb even higher,“ announced General Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that “The WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that #COVID19 can be characterized as a pandemic. Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly.”

And so COVID-19 became a global issue. To this day, this is what we know about the virus. This and little else. We can trace its origins and its circulation, however we do not know how long it will be before we get rid of it.

Yet History can be of help to us. An article which appeared on May 10 identified two fundamental moments which determine the end of a pandemic “The medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes.”

What point are we at now? It is hard to say for certain. Last summer it looked like the virus had decreased in force and appeared less dangerous. From mid-May to the end of September, infections were in the order of a few hundred / thousand per day, intensive care units were stable and deaths at a minimum.

During the past weeks however, following the European trend, the number of people infected in Italy has soared to over 11,000 (of which 95% without symptoms as declared by virologist Giorgio Palù), intensive therapy units are slowly filling up again and the number of deaths appears stable. The current situation cannot be compared to that of last winter, as Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte also explained: “It is not March, we have to make adequate and well-thought choices”.

To this day, the government’s objective has been to contain the virus in such a way that it impacts health institutions like a constant small wave and not like a tsunami with a devastating effect. Because maybe the best thing to do is learn to live with the virus, mitigating it as much as possible and reducing to a minimum its impact on hospitals.

The second and maybe more brutal manner of declaring the end of a pandemic is when the population, tired of the epidemic, decides to simply live with the virus. According to Allan Brandt, a Harvard historian quoted by the New York Times, this could be the case with COVID-19: “As we have seen in the debate about opening the economy, many questions about the so-called end are determined not by medical and public health data but by socio-political processes.”

The first thing which needs to be done to accelerate the end of the coronavirus pandemic is to chronicle what is happening in a clear manner and without giving in to useless alarmism. We are undoubtedly dealing with a complex virus, however, COVID-19 is not the bubonic plague.

Moreover, the latter which on many occasions decimated populations throughout the world, teaches us something extremely important: diseases come and go. Sometimes in mysterious ways. The “black death” has not even entirely disappeared, it has only momentarily retreated: “In the United States – reports the New York Times, “infections are endemic among prairie dogs in the Southwest and can be transmitted to people.”

Recently, cases have also been reported in China. “The plague” – points out Giuseppe Pigoli in I dardi di Apollo (Utet) (“Apollo’s Darts” ed.n) – “was never completely eradicated. In the year 2000 a WHO report listed over 34,000 cases in 24 nations over a 15-year span. The 1990s especially witnessed a resurgence of the infection, to the point that it has once again been included in the category of re-emerging illnesses.”

The Spanish Flu

Many have compared COVID-19 to the Spanish flu which, between 1918 and 1920, infected over 500 million people, killing (according to some estimates) 50 million. One hundred years later, we still do not yet know where the virus originated. There are diverse hypotheses: some believe it initially broke out in Haskell County in Kansas and was brought to Europe by American soldiers, while according to others it was widely spread by 96,000 infected Chinese workers sent to the Western front during the First World War to help English and French troops.

As Pigoli points out in the above-mentioned volume, “the illness initially appeared as a “banal” influenza: temperature, aching joints and weakness. However in just a few days the clinical picture underwent a dramatic change: the temperature rose drastically, mucus and blood appeared in the lungs causing patients to “drown” and bringing people, who until only a few days earlier had appeared healthy, to a rapid death”. This description reminds us a lot of COVID-19.

Contrary to what one might think however, it was not the more fragile and elderly people who were most affected, as is usually the case with coronavirus, but men who were generally healthy. Tired, dirty, and worn out by the mud in the trenches, the soldiers became the virus’ main target with hundreds of thousands wiped out.

In May 1918, death rates peaked to 70%. It was the start of the massacre: upon returning home, the veterans brought the disease with them, infecting relatives: “Accounts describe how funerals were celebrated continually. People wore protective masks, entire families fell ill and were confined to their homes with law enforcement watching their doors”.

Two years later, the Spanish flu suddenly disappeared. Pigoli points out that “viruses survive by camouflaging themselves to escape from antibodies. The history of these mutations is full of episodes which clearly show how this infectious agent is almost invincible and how, despite every year health authorities prepare new vaccines, occasionally virulent epidemics which are very difficult to control occur, such as those which broke out in 1957, 1968 and 1977”.

Viruses, moreover, come and go. And as Andrew Nikiforuk wrote in the Fourth Horseman, they are “a mutating reminder of how life is”.

Translation by Audrey Sadleir

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The United Nation’s General Assembly has produced its fair share of unique moments during its existence and the opening of the 2020 session did not disappoint. The omnipresent dispute between China and the US culminated in President Trump’s calling for the UN to hold China accountable for COVID-19.

Trump: China Must be ‘Held Accountable’ for Unleashing a ‘Plague’ on the World

The president reiterated his allegations against China for the global spread of the coronavirus. China needed to be “held accountable” for unleashing the “plague” on the world, and for not having stopped it, Trump said in his video message.

Trump also accused China and the World Health Organization of having incorrectly informed about the nature of the coronavirus’s spread. Both had initially stated that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus. Furthermore, later mistakenly stated that individuals without symptoms would not spread the disease.

WHO ‘Practically Controlled by China’

The intense tone against the WHO did not end there, however. The president also accused the WHO of being  “practically controlled by China” and urged the United Nations to hold China accountable for its actions.

While the latter fits into the anti-China rhetoric the White House has implemented into its reelection campaign, it will remain without any UN repercussions. With China being one of the permanent Security Council members, it would veto any potentially binding resolution against Beijing.

The president’s words are nonetheless the most recent example of the significant deterioration in relations between Beijing in Washington over the previous months, partly due to the coronavirus.

US-China Relations at a Record Low

The conflict now affects almost every aspect of the relationship between the two. After punitive tariffs, Washington has begun to impose tough political sanctions. Recently, the dispute over the popular Chinese app Tiktok caused a stir.

It was hence fitting that at the start of the general debate on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned of a “cold war” between the US and China. Both sides were moving into a “perilous direction”. The world cannot afford a future in which the two largest economies “split the globe” and cause an economic divide that had the potential to transform into a military one, Guterres said.

Trump went on to say that 75 years after the end of World War II and the founding of the United Nations, a major global struggle had once again emerged. Nonetheless, a bitter fight was waged against the “invisible enemy.” In the US, the pandemic had led to the most monumental mobilization since World War II, the president stated.

US Promises Coronavirus Vaccine Will be Released Soon

Trump also announced that they would soon have a vaccine, defeat the virus, and leave the pandemic behind before entering a “new era of unprecedented prosperity, cooperation and peace”.

Besides China and the pandemic, Trump furthermore underlined his administration’s efforts for peace. America was fulfilling its “destiny as a peacemaker,” but it was “peace through strength.” He highlighted the breakthrough in the agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Israel and the two Arab states have agreed to normalize their relations through Trump’s mediation.

A “peace agreement between Serbia and Kosovo” had also been reached, he claimed. However, while Serbia and Kosovo agreed to normalize their economic relations through the White House mediation, no peace agreement has been concluded at this point.

The High US Death Toll of COVID-19

According to the Johns Hopkins University, around 200,000 Americans have died after being infected with the virus in the USA since the beginning of the corona pandemic. In addition, there were more than 6.8 million confirmed infections with the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen in the country.

Due to the pandemic, this year’s General Assembly is taking place virtually. The representatives of all 193 member states — including well over 150 heads of state and government — did not speak as they normally would at the UN headquarters in New York, but instead utilized pre-recorded video speeches. This did nothing to stop the war of words, however.

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Russia has become the world’s first country to approve a vaccine against COVID-19. The international response, however, has been consistently negative. Criticisms from the international community claim that approval may have been granted too prematurely while meaningful test results are missing.

Putin’s Announcement

President Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s advancements in the global race for vaccine supremacy on Tuesday. The vaccine developed by the Moscow Gamaleja Institute received approval from the Ministry of Health, Putin announced, further noting that one of his two daughters had already been vaccinated. He stated that he hoped that mass production could begin soon.

The vaccine was approved after less than two months of testing. Putin stressed, however, that all the necessary tests had been conducted, nonetheless. According to health authorities, medical staff, teachers, and other risk groups in Russia should be vaccinated first.

Critics: Vaccine is Not up to International Standards

So far, experts had assumed that a vaccine would likely not be ready before the end of this year or the beginning of 2021. One of the reasons for this is that vaccines need to progress through various stages of testing. According to reports, the third and decisive stage of testing was not carried out in Russia.

Besides, the vaccine has so far only been tested on an infinitesimal group of individuals, which is contrary to international criteria. General suspicion regarding the vaccine’s safety, even after Russia had first announced progress in its research, thus seems warranted.

Little is known about the vaccine “Gam-COVID-Vac Lyo” at this stage. It is a so-called vector vaccine, in which harmless viruses serve as carriers for characteristic genome segments of the pathogen Sars-CoV-2. The immune system of the vaccinated person should react to this genetic material and develop an appropriate immune response.

However, many scientists in Russia as well as abroad have expressed criticism of registering a new agent before the aforementioned third test phase has been completed. The latter usually takes several months and involves several thousand test subjects.

However, in Russia, the experimental corona vaccine was first tested on a few dozen volunteers less than two months ago, and no scientific results have yet been published. Some observers suspect that the reason for the ambitious timetable is that Moscow hopes for a propaganda success.

Sceptics Abound

Vitali Swerjew from the Russian Metschnikof Institute explained, for example, that developing the vaccine was the smallest problem. The real hurdle was that it is impossible to prove a vaccine’s effectiveness and potential danger. Nor can be said how long the immunity will last, without sufficient research. Sverjew was thus concerned that Russia has been neglecting its duty of care in the process.

The World Health Organization also emphasizes that potential vaccines always have to go through all test phases before they come onto the market in order to adhere to “established practices and guidelines”, said spokesman Christian Lindmeier. Anthony Fauci, the top expert on infectious diseases in the USA, has expressed his concerns over Russia’s advancements, also.

“Claims to have a vaccine that can be widely used before testing is problematic at best,” he said.

The Price for Russians Could be High

Already the previous week, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister for Education, Health and Social Policy Tatyana Golikova announced that her country would approve a vaccine in August. Golikova had only limited the roadmap to successful clinical tests with around 1,600 subjects.

On Monday then, Health Minister Mikhail Muraschko announced that Gamaleja had completed the clinical trials with the vaccine. Russia seeks to start the first mass vaccination campaign against the coronavirus as early as October and officially win the international race.

However, the price that the Russian population could have to pay for what may end up being nothing more than a temporary propaganda success could be exceedingly high.

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The most acute phase of the pandemic appears to be ending. Countries — or, at the very least, provinces, states and regions— are coming out of lockdown. Many nations are reporting fewer new infections, and economies around the world are slowly being revived.

The WHO’s Problems are Far From Over

But, for the World Health Organisation, there are further troubles on the horizon. The organisation will doubtlessly be a major subject of the oncoming investigation into the global handling of the pandemic, which, at the time of writing, has the backing of 122 countries, and includes the European Union, African Group, the UK, Russia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The WHO will likely need to answer whether it acted quickly enough, and whether it was too soft on China in the early stages of the outbreak.

The proposal for the investigation is said to be a watered down version of its initial draft. This is likely due to a fear of how China will react: indeed, the proposal did not even mention the country where the pandemic started, and whose authoritarian suppression media and whistleblowers in the country likely made it more difficult for the rest of the world to respond. China had already threatened Australia — which has led the initiative — with serious sanctions.

The WHO, of course, can’t strong-arm the investigation the way that China has done (and will likely attempt to do again). And there is a long list of things it, and especially its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, will need to answer for: most notably, its mishandling of the situation when the virus first appeared.

Questions Surrounding the WHO’s Reaction to COVID-19

Take, for example, something the WHO tweeted out in mid-January. It said: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus.” The same statement was roughly reproduced by the Chinese health services in Wuhan. We now know that there was better information available at the time, and that the Chinese government in particular was aware that such transmission was possible, if not certain.

As a result of taking China’s word at face value, the WHO dragged their feet in declaring it a global health emergency, which affected the global response. And now there are those – the US senior security advisor, John Bolton, among them — who are alleging a cover-up between the WHO and China

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

There is no hard evidence to support these theories of China-WHO foul play. Still, there are many who are concerned that Adhanom was too sympathetic with China and that this muddied his — and the organisation’s — communications.

The issue around faulty communication has since not been resolved. Take for example last weekend, the WHO tweeted out that: “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from #COVID19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.” They were responding to the discussion around “immunity passports” — the idea that governments could grant special documents to citizens who test positive for COVID-19 antibodies, allowing them to move about freely. The WHO warned this was premature, since “no study has evaluated whether the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans.”

This misses vital context. There is currently no evidence of immunity, but scientists have good reason to expect people who have recovered from COVID-19 to have some immunity to the virus, as that is the case with many other viruses.

The sloppy phrasing had an enormous impact. Major news organisations like Bloomberg News, for example, reported the story the headlines ‘WHO Warns You May Catch Coronavirus More Than Once”: a total misrepresentation the facts.

Partly revealing of the difficulties scientists have when communicating with a laymen audience, it was nevertheless a serious oversight, and fosters an atmosphere of misinformation which affects how people think, feel and act during the pandemic.

The WHO’s many missteps during the pandemic have led to widespread calls for scrutiny. There are those already predicting it will need tremendous reform after the pandemic and the WHO’s relationship with China will likely be of central concern going forward.

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US and foreign officials have said that President Donald Trump and his top aides are working behind the scenes to sideline the World Health Organisation (WHO), following the 60-day hold on US funding to the WHO implemented last week.

Trump accused the WHO of failing to accurately communicate the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in China, a decision which, according to Trump, led to the most severe outbreak of the virus on US soil. The White House blamed the WHO for a “lack of transparency and chronic mismanagement of the pandemic,” including in its list of complaints the WHO recommendation to keep US borders open following the outbreak in Wuhan.

White House attacks against the WHO have spotlighted institutional problems within the United Nations organisation as a whole.

The Trump-WHO War

Created on April 7, 1948 during a post-war fervor for global consciousness and global health, WHO states that its goal is “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.”

A subsidiary of the United Nations, its self-identified goal is to “detect and respond to acute health emergencies” and protect people from said emergencies by “identifying, mitigating and managing risks”. Its values demand fairness and impartiality towards every nation and global citizen.

WHO Praise for China

A WHO statement released on January 30 of this year praised the “leadership and the political commitment of the very highest levels of Chinese government, their commitment to transparency, and the efforts made to investigate and contain the current outbreak”. Yet accusations of dishonesty to the WHO, and to the global community, have followed China since it revealed the virus outbreak in late December, 2019.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, was accused of showing partiality to China, and taking China’s word as fact, without carrying out investigations of his own. In early February, a week after labelling the outbreak in China a PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern), Ghebreyesus argued against global travel restrictions.

Travel restrictions against China “can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit,” he said.

“Where such measures have been implemented, we urge that they are short in duration, proportionate to the public health risks, and are reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves,” he continued.

Although some experts have argued that Ghebreyesus followed correct procedure, Trump capitalized on the Director-General’s advice not to close borders. On April 19, the Washington Post revealed that, despite Trump’s assertions that he was misled by the WHO, there were more than a dozen American government officials, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, working in the Geneva headquarters of the WHO, who communicated real-time information of the outbreak in China to Trump.

Furthermore, Trump himself has refused to openly criticize Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with whom he has a personal relationship. In late January, he tweeted: “It will all work out well. On behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi.” The United States’ President had also recently thanked China for “their efforts and transparency” in dealing with the pandemic.

‘Get That Vaccine’

Trump’s criticisms against the WHO are hypocritical and self-serving, but they illuminate deep political and financial discrepancies within the international body.

In an interview with CNN last week global business magnate and Microsoft founder Bill Gates was adamant that “China did a lot of things right at the beginning.”

“Like any country where a virus first shows up, they can look back and see where they missed some things,” he continued, while adding that “some countries did respond very quickly and get their testing in place and they avoided the incredible economic pain, and its sad that even the US, that you would have expected to do this well, did it particularly poorly.”

The multibillionaire concluded by asking nations to “to take the great science we have, the fact that we’re in this together, fix testing and treatments and get that vaccine.”

After the United States, Bill Gates is the WHO’s biggest funder. Through three organisations created or funded by Gates: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, the WHO received more than $474 million in 2017, in contrast to the $401 million provided by the US in the same year.

But Gates is not the only big-source funder of the WHO. Other vaccine-creators and Big Pharma groups funded the WHO this year, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Novovax and Nosocomial Vaccine Company.

The precedent was set during the aftermath of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic when an investigation into the WHO revealed that many scientific experts who had advised the then-WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan to prematurely declare the H1N1 outbreak a pandemic were funded by Big Pharma and major vaccine-makers. Chan’s decision would lead to billions of premature governmental spending on vaccines that were not needed, because of minimal global infections.

All PHEIC-ed Up

While health officials and scientists continue to debate whether an earlier declaration of a global pandemic would have made a difference to the management of the outbreak, they are adamant that the WHO’s guidelines on declaring a pandemic be overhauled. After the H1N1 pandemic fiasco, the WHO revamped its guidelines, using instead a PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern) method.

The WHO would not label the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic until March 11, causing confusion among government and health officials worldwide. In response to using the PHEIC label, WHO spokeperson, Tarik Jasaveric said on January 30: “There is no official category (for a pandemic).

“WHO does not use the old system of 6 phases — that ranged from phase 1 (no reports of animal influenza causing human infections) to phase 6 (a pandemic) — that some people may be familiar with from H1N1 in 2009.”

After an emergency committee meeting on January 22, 8 days before the PHEIC declatation, another WHO spokesperson had said: “at the time of the first meeting not all members of the committee felt that there was adequate evidence/information to support recommending declaration of a PHEIC”.

Is Criticism of the WHO Legitimate?

The WHO’s inability to make a definitive declaration on the coronavirus was widely criticized by scientists and health officials. Health officials accused the WHO of misleading them, and misleading the public. Others questioned the political motivations behind the WHO’s lack of transparency.

David Heyman, who worked for the WHO for 22 years told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in February that the form and nature of the PHEIC needs to be reconsidered.

“There’s confusion around the world about the declaration. “What does it really mean and why does it always appear to be delayed rather than on time?”

A recent internal audit also portrayed the organization in a negative light. The audit stated that the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, the division responsible for the global coronavirus outbreak, is chronically underfunded. The program, the audit recounts, has repeatedly posed “severe” and unacceptable” hazard levels to the organisation as a whole.

As of May, 2019, 59 out of 90 recommendations given by internal auditors were uncompleted, including 38 “high-significance” reforms, some of which were accused of suffering “low implementation efforts”.

Even worse, the audit warned of a rise in allegations of internal corruption, detecting multiple schemes aimed at defrauding the organisation of large sums of money.

Can We Still Trust the WHO?

The biggest problem the World Health Organisation faces are corruption and lack of transparency. Dr. Kamradt-Scott, in a recent British Medical Journal article, called for greater transparency in how the WHO decides to what constitutes a public health emergency.

“Until there is increased transparency around [emergency committee] deliberations, questions about irrelevant considerations, undue influence and political interference will continue to arise,” he wrote.

“The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition,” the WHO’s Constitution reads. Yet, political and financial motivations have left the World Health Organisation unwilling to follow its own constitution. As such, we the people, can no longer trust that the WHO has our best interests in mind.

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In a somber tone, Boris Johnson warned the British people of the tragedy to come. Many more would lose their loved ones, he said. Many more would die. The date was March 12, 2020. It was a whole two months after the UK registered its first case. On that same day, Slovakia went into lockdown six days after its first registered case. The Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, and Slovenia – all having recently registered their first cases – followed Slovakia’s lead. While Western European countries dragged their feet, Central Europe acted. Quarantines, border closures, curfews – nationwide lockdown.

Not All Lockdowns Were Created Equal

Since then nearly every other European country has done the same. But not all lockdowns have been equal. As of April 23, the UK has over 270 Coronavirus deaths per million people. France 320, Italy 415, and Spain 464. Between these four countries, thousands still die every day. Meanwhile in Slovakia, less than 3 people have died per million citizens. Of the remaining Central European countries mentioned, Slovenia has the highest death rate with 38. Why have deaths for Western European countries been a whole order of magnitude higher than they have been for their less developed Central and Eastern European neighbors?

Explaining Western Europe’s Crisis

Plenty of explanations have been provided by astute Western commentators. The BCG vaccine, lack of tourism, under-reporting. Even Communism has been offered as an explanation. These dubious proposals miss a glaringly obvious observation. Far from being some wildly successful Central European experiment in need of explanation, these countries simply followed the lead of those who knew best – Asian countries.

Asia experienced SARS in the early 2000s, and then the novel coronavirus before the rest of the world in 2020. They were better prepared, and implemented quicker and more effective responses than anyone else. There was no need to experiment. Asia’s experience was there for all to follow. Small Central European states looked to China’s example and went into “Wuhan-style” lockdown as quickly as they could. Relative to the spread of the virus, Central Europe acted far, far quicker than Western Europe.

It Can’t Happen Here? Wrong

The true experiments, meanwhile, have been in Western European countries. Most notably Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden whose strategies are based on untested theoretical models which rely on unproven behavioral theories and have led them to either delay proven measures or not implement them at all. But even those Western countries not experimenting were crippled by thoughts of “it can’t happen here”, and failed to acknowledge the spread of the virus even long after it had begun. For weeks they patted themselves on the back for preserving democratic liberties as COVID-19 spread undetected. When it became clear how much they had misjudged the situation and they finally locked down, it was too late.

Complacency is Deadly

There is no excuse that can make up for the complacency that poisoned Europe. The strongest explanation for the prolonged inaction and denial is the deeply engrained sense of superiority that pervades in Western Europe to this day. The generation that leads Europe grew up in a wealthy and modern continent looking down on a China they saw as a poor and dirty country far away on the other side of the world. Now China is more modern than Europe and sits firmly at the heart of the most globalized world in history. Yet it seems like those two old perceptions of China blinded Europe not just to the threats posed by the virus, but to its proven responses too.

Besides lockdowns and contact tracing, the most symbolic of these responses is the face mask. Common in East Asia since SARS, many countries in the region have insisted the mass wearing of face masks is essential to stopping the spread of coronavirus. The WHO disagrees, but Central Europe has followed the lead of Asia, not the WHO. In late March, the Czech Republic and Slovakia made use of face masks in public mandatory. And, in what may become one of the era’s most iconic images, Slovakia’s President wore an elegant matching face mask as she swore in the new government. It was an early symbol of the new world to come.

What About Germany’s Relative Success in Battling COVID-19?

Central Europe’s largest and richest country – conspicuously omitted until now – has perhaps been the biggest coronavirus success story of all. Germany is the EU’s most populous country but boasts a surprisingly low death rate at 64 per million, despite having the fourth most recorded cases in the world. This is thanks to a South Korean inspired model – mass testing and tracing of infected people’s contacts. So-called ‘test and trace’.

Though Germany’s decentralized government means individual states implement measures at different points and to varying degrees, the overall strategy from the beginning has been one inspired by the East Asian experience. Now Germany is even relaxing its lockdown, but not without a further measure – face masks. Like its Czech and Austrian neighbors, and against the advice of the WHO, German states are demanding citizens wear face masks in public. And joining Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria are loosening up restrictions too. Central Europe — late to the pandemic — is slowly becoming the first to overcome it.

Post-Lockdown Means Social Distancing, Face Masks and Closed Borders

While the UK, Spain, and others in Western Europe still debate what emerging from lockdown will look like, Central Europe is already there. Social distancing, face masks, and closed borders. With idealism stripped back and replaced by pandemic realities, a new normal is developing in the heart of Europe. One that is built to last.

History books will not be writing about a great Central European experiment because there was none. With no other model to follow, Central Europe quickly looked to implement what had succeeded in East Asia. For the smaller, less well-off states it meant lockdowns and homemade face masks. For the larger and wealthier, mass testing and contact tracing. Either way, the result is the same. Thousands of deaths avoided, and probably a more stable long-term equilibrium.

History may not be so kind to Western European leaders. With greater means they achieved far less and with the consequences of the virus clear they waited too long to act. Some eventually realized their mistakes and belatedly began to implement necessary measures, while others have turned their countries into nationwide social experiments. And again, the result is the same. Tens of thousands of entirely avoidable deaths. Central Europe listened to Asia. Western Europe did not — and it is suffering the consequences.

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With the growing number of deaths and the increasing spread of coronavirus across the continents, the global community’s ire towards China seems to be growing. The Chinese strategy of projecting itself as a victim of the pandemic and extending a helping hand in this hour of crisis appear to have increasingly few takers.

Calling Out China

Moreover, the USA, the UK, France, Australia, and Germany are joining the chorus who are castigating China for suppressing the facts on COVID-19 and misleading their own people and the world, thereby enabling the worldwide spread of coronavirus.

Amid the growing clamor in favor of penalizing China in some way, the US state of Missouri has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court against the Chinese government, the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and other Chinese officials and institutions. The State of Missouri alleges that Beijing’s actions of arresting whistleblowers and suppressing information about the contagious nature of the novel coronavirus have caused “severe damage” to countries globally along with the loss of many lives and economic disorder. The lawsuit also alleges that the Chinese officials did little to contain the spread despite knowing the nature of the disease. Germany’s largest tabloid newspaper, Bild, has claimed that compensation of $162 billion from China should be paid out due to coronavirus.

Will China Care?

According to information after the US Congressmen, Chris Smith and Ron Wright legislation, China and other countries cannot find rescue behind the clause of sovereign immunity if they deliberately conceal facts regarding the coronavirus, thereby US citizens, businesses and the local government can sue governments for the deaths, suffering, pain, and economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit alleges that Chinese communist leaders gave a false picture to the WHO of keeping the spread of coronavirus under control despite the knowledge of highly contagious diseases by mid-January.

According to the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a British foreign policy think-tank, the Chinese government’s handling of the disease and failure to provide detailed information to the WHO breached Articles Six and Seven of the International Health Regulations [IHRs], a Treaty to which China is a signatory and legally obliged to defend. These breaches allowed the rapid spread of cases outside Wuhan, its place of origin.

The International Health Regulations mandates that states monitor and share all information regarding “conditions affecting the spread of the disease, laboratory results, clinical descriptions, sources and type of risk, numbers of human cases and deaths, and the health measures employed” concerning potential outbreaks. The Henry Jackson Society investigation concluded that there is evidence the Chinese Government breached international healthcare responsibilities and China was in a position to minimize the worldwide economic impact of COVID-19. The British foreign policy think-tank estimates that the global lawsuits against China for “patent breaches” of the International Health Regulations over its handling of COVID-19 could run to at least £3.2 trillion from just the nations of the G7. The Henry Jackson Society’s recommendations include taking up the matter with the Permanent Court of Arbitration, International Court of Justice, dispute resolutions through Bilateral Investment Treaties, Hong Kong Courts, and actions at the WTO.

How Much Do Experts Think China Should Pay?

James Kraska of the U.S. Naval War College believes ⁠— based on the International Law Commission’s 2001 Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts and the 2005 International Health Regulations ⁠— that China can be found liable for monetary damages.

According to experts, the U.S. and its allies could sue China before an international tribunal, such as the International Court of Justice. The administration could also seize the assets of Chinese state-owned companies by the legal process and cancel Belt and Road Initiative debts of Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America as compensation for coronavirus losses. Seizing Chinese property would allow the United States to use international law to its advantage. Some others advocate confiscating China’s U.S. Treasury obligations that are more than $1 trillion.

Amidst the growing clamor, China has denied any cover-up in reporting the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019. “China was the first country to report the COVID-19 to the World Health Organization (WHO), and that doesn’t mean the virus originated from Wuhan,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the other day.

But with the US President Donald Trump warning that China could face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus pandemic and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urging China to be more transparent about the origin of coronavirus, China could have a very bumpy road ahead.

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Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), which was discovered in Wuhan, China has now taken more than 117,400 lives globally and infected over 1.8 million. Researchers are busy in producing the best vaccines, and world leaders are cooperating to slow the spread of the virus that causes a disease with symptoms like flu but can become highly deadly.

Despite the global efforts to mitigate the outbreak, the situation is also triggering diplomatic tensions among countries for various reasons, from access restriction to pro-China allegations targeting the World Health Organization (WHO).

Trump Slams the World Health Organization as Being Pro-China

US President Donald Trump threatened to freeze aid to the Geneva-based institution and accused it of being biased towards China.

“The WHO really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China-centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately, I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?” Trump recently tweeted.

The allegation came amid the surge in the numbers of COVID-19-related infections in the U.S. As of April 13, there are 564,317 recorded cases of COVID-19 in the US and 22,859 deaths, surpassing the death toll in Italy and Spain.

American lawmakers from the Republican Party, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio backed Trump by saying that there would be no aid assistance for the WHO. They also specifically demanded the resignation of WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Criticism of the WHO’s Response to COVID-19

The WHO has been under ongoing criticism for its handling of COVID-19. At the end of January, the health organization under the United Nations (UN) admitted making a wrong assessment about the global risk of the Novel Coronavirus.

The WHO uses three categories to evaluate the global risk; severity level, a level based on how widespread the virus is, and a level which measures the mitigation capacity. In the past, the WHO was slammed for hurriedly declaring the swine flu (H1N1) a global pandemic in 2009, triggering the vaccine’s panic buying. In 2014, the WHO faced criticism for underestimating the Ebola outbreak in three West African countries that claimed more than 11,000 lives at that time and is still ongoing.

Taiwan Demands Apology from WHO Boss

Taiwan recently demanded that Ghebreyesus apologize after the Ethiopian microbiologist was believed to have accused Taiwan of launching a racist attack on him and the organization he chairs.

In her Facebook account, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen responded to Ghebreyesus’ accusation by writing that Taiwan has been excluded from international organizations (due to the one-China policy) and understands more about feeling discriminated against than anyone else.

China has dubbed Taiwan the mainland’s renegade province due to the 1949 civil war and blocked the international community from recognizing Taiwan as an independent state, which is widely known as the One-China principle.

The WHO snubbed Taiwan’s early warning about the potential danger of the Novel Coronavirus in Wuhan in December 2019, given that Taiwan is not a member of the WHO. The organization’s denial has made the world pay the price as even countries with the best health care systems such as the U.S. and Italy are not prepared to deal with the surging amount of infected patients.

Taiwan is hailed as one of the most prepared countries in dealing with COVID-19, thanks to its past experience fighting SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrom) outbreak in 2003. Taiwan has combined transparency, the implementation of technology to identify cases and track patients, and solid coordination involving relevant institutions to contain the pandemic.

South Korea’s Protest over Japan’s Travel Restrictions

In early March, South Korea protested Japan’s decision to quarantine travelers coming from China and South Korea as an effort to curb the virus.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry urged Tokyo to reconsider its “irrational and arrogant” steps and announced plans to summon the Japanese ambassador to discuss the matter.

“We express deep regret towards the unjust measures taken by the Japanese government,” South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha stated as Todayonline reported. He added that Seoul might take countermeasures if necessary.

South Korea has drawn global praise for tackling the COVID-19 outbreak without imposing a nationwide lockdown, thanks to the integration of technology, transparency, and rapid mass testing. Also, South Korea is the world’s second-most efficient country in dealing with the outbreak after Singapore, as research from Deep Knowledge Venture — a Hong-Kong-based venture capital company — recently revealed.

The EU’s Long Path to Approving a Stimulus Package

On April 11 the European Union (EU) approved a half a billion Euro (equal to 4 percent of Europe’s GDP) stimulus to offset to the impact of the pandemic.

The package will enable the countries which have been hardest hit by COVID-19 hardest-hit countries such as Italy and Spain to access the bailout worth up to 240 million Euros, as long as the budget is used to improve the needs for their healthcare services.

The mortality rates related to COVID-19 in Italy and Spain have reached an alarming level, despite the lockdown both countries are imposing. As of April 13, Spain’s infection numbers come second after the U.S. (169,496), with 17,489 deaths while Italy has recorded more than 20,460 deaths and 159,516 COVID-19 cases so far.

Previously, France and the Netherlands were at odds over the bloc’s finance ministers’ compromise to disburse 500 billion Euro for the pandemic package, given that using up all the bloc’s money will make the bloc difficult to save in another rainy day.

“You cannot judge when you are in the crisis. We do agree we should make use of all our instruments. But we should not use up all our instruments this week, because we don’t know how long the crisis will be,” an EU diplomat told Eurobersever.

Germany and Canada Accused the US of Sabotaging Masks

A senior Germany official accused the Trump administration of “modern piracy” after seizing almost 200,000 face masks previously ordered by Germany, as the Guardian reported.

Berlin state’s Interior Minister, Andreas Geisel, confirmed the media reported that around 200,000 FFP2 masks bought for the Berlin Police were confiscated in the airport in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital following the US authorities’ intervention.

The American company 3M is the producer of those masks. It said that the Trump administration had demanded the increase in shipment to the U.S. from its overseas factories.

However, the Trump administration also orders the company not to export its masks to Canada and Latin America, triggering anger from Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The young prime minister argued that the US also relies on medical supplies from Canada.

Masks are the hottest commodities in the pandemic, as well as hand sanitizers and rapid test kits. Many doctors and medical workers around the world are facing a shortage of masks and protective equipment, making them more vulnerable to the COVID-19 infection.

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Three months after COVID-19 first appeared in China, US President Donald Trump has determined who to blame for the resulting global health pandemic: the World Health Organization. On Tuesday, he announced that he would cut American funding for the international body pending a US review of its handling of the outbreak.

America’s WHO Funding Revoked

“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” Trump said, fulfilling a threat he issued last week when he called the WHO “China-centric.”

“This is an evaluation period, but in he meantime, we’re putting a hold on all funds going to World Heath.”

For 2018 and 2019, the US gave a combined $900 million to the WHO, according to the organization, which accounted for nearly 20% of its budget. Nearly 75% of America’s contribution was voluntary, as TIME reported.

Trump accused the WHO of withholding key data on the virus from the scientific community. He also said it was “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the virus,” in part because of a bias toward China.

The US now leads the world in COVID-19 deaths and cases.

The WHO Responds

“We alerted the world on January 5,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program. “Systems around the world, including the U.S., began to activate their incident management systems on January 6. And through the next number of weeks, we’ve produced multiple updates to countries, including briefing multiple governments, multiple scientists around the world, on the developing situation — and that is what it was, a developing situation.”

Ryan continued his breakdown of the organization’s response by stressing the emphasis it put on limiting possible human-to-human spread in the early days of the virus. Five days after the virus was identified, its genetic sequence was shared with the international medical community, he added.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he regrets Trump’s decision, but vowed that WHO’s global mission will continue.

“COVID-19 does not discriminate between rich nations and poor, large nations and small. It does not discriminate between nationalities, ethnicities or ideologies,” Tedros said. “Neither do we. This is a time for all of us to be united in our common struggle against a common threat — a dangerous enemy.”

Months of Inaction by Trump

Trump’s decision to attack the WHO is his tactic for shifting blame for the crisis away from himself. In fact, Trump received a briefing from Alex Azar, his health secretary, on January 18 before the first US cases. Days later, Trump declared, “We have it totally under control … It’s going to be just fine.”

On Jan. 31, Trump said his administration was “working closely with China and others on Coronavirus outbreak. Only 5 people in U.S., all in good recovery.” In February, he floated the idea that warmer weather may cause it to disappear, and on Feb. 28 he called it a hoax politicized by Democrats for political gain.

On March 9, the American leader continued to assert that the virus was not that dangerous, tweeting, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

Despite his nonchalant attitude toward the virus, when the WHO declared it a pandemic on March 17, Trump changed course and said “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

In an attempt to cover up for his own shortcomings, Trump is scapegoating the WHO. His move to halt funding has raised legal questions that Democrats are already jumping on.

House Speaker Pelosi Slams Trump’s ‘Illegal’ Move

“This decision is dangerous, illegal and will be swiftly challenged,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D–Cali. She said the move was “senseless” and called for International cooperation to fight the pandemic.

“This is sort of like shooting at an ambulance because you don’t like how quickly they responded to the first call, when you’ve still got lots of wounded,” said Sen. Christopher Coons, D–Del. Coons is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which in charge of allocating funding for groups like the WHO.

The committee allocated $120 million to cover membership dues for 2020, half of which has already been paid, according to the Washington Post. Voluntary contributions make up the rest of Washington’s funding, which varies between $200 million and $300 million per year.

Democrats argue the assessed dues that Congress appropriates money for cannot be restricted by Trump. 

“In a desperate attempt to deflect blame, President Trump is violating the same spending laws that brought about his impeachment,” said Evan Hollander, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee.

In that case, the Government Accountability Office determined Trump did indeed violate the law when he temporarily withheld military aid for Ukraine. The 1974 Impoundment Control Act significantly reduces the president’s power to withhold or reallocate funds appropriated by Congress. According to the law, the president must first notify Congress, which must approve the measure within 45 days. 

However, Congress is not required to vote on proposals to revoke funds and historically has ignored such requests. Congress is also recessed until May, so there aren’t any immediate legislative responses it can pursue. When it does return, however, the topic will undubitably come up as Democrats seek to return the WHO’s funding.

Republicans Stand by Their Leader

Congressional Republicans are siding with Trump, at least for now. 

“Cutting off funding at this time is the right move,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R–S.C. “This is a critical time for worldwide public health, and we cannot afford China apologists running the WHO. I support a suspension of funding by the United States until there is new leadership at the WHO.”

Sen. Todd Young, R–Ind., went a step further, calling for Tedros to appear before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee to answer for The WHO’s failures.

“It has given sanction to the ham-fisted response of the Chinese and the misinformation perpetuated by the Chinese,” Young said. “On all fronts, I’ve been not just unimpressed but outraged by the responsiveness and the performance of the World Health Organization.”

Some criticism of the WHO may be warranted. Tedros said “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response” even as its reporting honesty was called into question. Some argue the organization could have declared a health emergency sooner, yet that power was also afforded to individual states, many of which did lock down sooner. 

However, cutting funding during the pandemic, rather than waiting for it to subside and ordering a review before acting, only serves to make the situation worse. The WHO isn’t acting only on COVID-19 — it is fighting other diseases and crises across the globe, all of which require funding.

Trump’s slow response to the coronavirus likely cost American lives. His attempt to cover it up by scapegoating the WHO could cost more lives across the globe.

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