World health Organization experts say the new crown pneumonia outbreak may have spread widely in Wuhan as early as early December 2019, yet China has so far not allowed expert groups to review serum samples, and the U.S. and China have continued to spar over the transparency of the outbreak investigation. Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary General Tan Desai spoke out on Monday but said the experts going to China are conducting independent research and that “WHO is only coordinating from the middle” and not leading.
In an interview with CNN, Peter Ben Embarek, head of the group of experts who just returned to WHO headquarters in Switzerland after a press conference in Wuhan, noted that there were indications that there were already several cases in Wuhan long before the outbreak broke out in late December 2019, and that there were more cases than previously thought, however, until the moment of the interview, China still had not allowed the panel to go through the hundreds of thousands of serum samples that desperately needed to be reviewed.
Bainbari said more than a dozen strains of the virus had emerged in Wuhan in December 2019, and while in Wuhan, the panel had the opportunity to speak with what Chinese officials said was the first patient infected with the disease, a working man in his forties with no travel history who was diagnosed on Dec. 8, 2019.
However, these claims by Bainbari, whether or not they will be released next in the summary investigation report or the full report afterwards, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus already said at a press conference on February 15 that WHO does not endorse the investigation report: “I have heard many people say that this is a WHO study and investigation. But it’s not, it’s not a WHO investigation, it’s a study conducted independently by experts, and WHO is just coordinating in the middle.”
Tandse also said that only two of the international panel of experts from the WHO, the other ten experts from ten institutions in different countries, the WHO will not guide them on what to do, regardless of the experts ultimately in the report on which views there is consensus, and what different views, are the independent views of experts.
In early January, Tandezai also expressed a “very disappointed” position that some of the experts were not granted visas to China, and said he was in constant contact with Chinese officials. But just after the U.S. spoke out questioning the transparency of the investigation, it changed its story to say that the investigation was not WHO-led. This statement, which clearly does not want to offend any of the major powers, once again highlights the fact that the WHO, as the world’s most important multilateral health agency, has not played its role as the world’s leader in the fight against the Epidemic, from the lack of early warning mechanisms to the investigation after the fact.
U.S. expert writes that WHO has a responsibility to investigate and should not be afraid to offend
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, is director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Law and Human Rights and a former member of the WHO Secretary-General’s ad hoc WHO Reform Commission. In an article for the JAMA Health Forum, part of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), he does not criticize Tandusse by name, but he makes clear that the global health system’s early warning failures in this epidemic are not a reflection of the WHO’s role. In the post-epidemic era, WHO has the legal status of global mandate to investigate the origin of the epidemic and the virus, and China has the corresponding responsibility to cooperate.
Stephen Morrison, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank and an expert in global health policy research, echoed Gosden’s words and told reporters, “The original host of the virus, the intermediate host, and how did it spread to people? These are still scientific mysteries to be solved. If we don’t find the final answer, we will remain in the dark. The truth must be clarified so that we can prepare and predict for future viral pandemics.”
How can we learn lessons if we don’t know the truth? Morrison then gave the example of the SARS epidemic (SARS), when the world did not know the origin of the virus at first and it took a while to figure it out. However, while the poor sanitary conditions in China’s traditional markets selling live poultry were noted at that Time, has China’s market management gotten any better after more than a decade?
U.S., China trade barbs over outbreak investigation
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan issued a written statement on March 13, expressing “deep concern” about the preliminary findings of the WHO investigation and questioning the process by which the WHO reached its conclusions. He stressed that the findings should be independent and free from Chinese interference or falsification. Sullivan also called on China to hand over original information from the early days of the outbreak.
Sullivan said in the statement that the renewed U.S. engagement with WHO also means that the United States will hold the WHO to the highest standard of scrutiny. At this critical time, protecting the credibility of the WHO is a top priority.
The Chinese Embassy in the U.S., on the 14th, published a question and answer on its official website in the name of the spokesperson, noting that China welcomes the return of the U.S. to WHO, but that WHO is a multilateral authority in the field of international health and “is not a playground where you can come and go when you want.”
The spokesman also said that the U.S. has done in recent years to undermine multilateral mechanisms, including WHO, and hinder cooperation in the fight against the epidemic, but now acts as if nothing has happened, and even accuses other countries that have always supported WHO and WHO itself, how to win the trust of the world? The speaker also asked the United States to hold itself to the “highest standards”.
What China did not answer, however, was the refusal of China to provide original information on the first cases of the new coronavirus in its territory, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing members of the panel. The panel engaged in a heated exchange with the Chinese side over this, the report said.
In the face of questions from the outside world, China has traditionally not answered questions straightforwardly, instead raising questions about other countries. In this investigation into the origin of the outbreak and the origin of the virus, more so than ever before.
Dissemination of false information about the epidemic Investigation: China’s world champion
The Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, has released a new survey that found that the “super China, not Russia, is the “super-spreader” of false information about the outbreak.
The report notes that when the first notification of unexplained pneumonia cases in Wuhan was made on Dec. 31, 2019, rumors surfaced in Chinese social media circles that the virus was a biological weapon released by a foreign enemy, with some Weibo users saying “Beware of the United States.
Last March, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian became a well-known global rumor spreader, tweeting that the virus was the product of a U.S. military laboratory. The Twitter accounts of Chinese officials such as Zhao Lijian have seen an explosion of followers. Zhao now has about 880,000 followers. And through online algorithmic technology, these rumors are spreading faster than a virus.
In a collaborative investigation, the Associated Press and the Atlantic Council noted that the Chinese government used rumors of a U.S.-made virus as a weapon to spread from dark corners of the Internet to the rest of the world, and that disinformation about the outbreak benefited the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Jessica Brandt, head of policy research at the Alliance for Securing Democracy in Washington, D.C., which specializes in disinformation, said, “In the long run, the closed dictatorships in China and Russia are still vulnerable, and that’s a structural vulnerability that dictatorships can’t escape. fragile links, while the networks of democratic societies have stronger alliances, more open information spaces. Those are strong points that can withstand trials like they did, like a better immunity.”
But she also cautioned that in an age of information explosion, how social media platforms are to play the role of dutiful gatekeepers, democratic societies do need thoughtful and careful discussions to set rules under the line that ensures they can guard freedom of expression.
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