British Prime Minister Boris Johnson participates in a video conference on the outbreak at the Prime Minister’s official residence. (Jan. 27, 2021)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday (Feb. 15) that world powers should sign a global treaty on pandemics to ensure proper transparency.
Asked by Reuters what action is needed to improve transparency, Johnson said, “I think what the world needs to see is universal agreement on how we track data about zoonotic pandemics …… We want a common agreement on transparency. “
“I think one of the attractive ideas we’ve seen in the last few months is a proposal for a global pandemic treaty so that signatories make sure they’re providing all the data they have so we can figure out once and for all what happened and stop it from happening again.” Johnson said, “That’s the sensible thing to do.”
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, had suggested at the Paris Peace Forum last November that the world needed a pandemic treaty to better coordinate the global response. He also voiced support for Johnson’s proposal this Time.
He tweeted, “I welcome Johnson’s support for a joint pandemic treaty to strengthen the global capacity to respond, recover and recover from disasters.”
Asked by Reuters who was responsible for the lack of transparency in information about the source of the New crown outbreak, Johnson said, “I think it’s fairly obvious that most of the evidence seems to indicate that the outbreak originated in Wuhan.”
He added, “So I think we all need to know as much as we can about how this happened, the zoonotic issues that people are asking about. I think we need as much information as we can get.”
According to the Global Times, the Communist Party’s official media, Johnson is “once again pointing to China as the source of the new crown outbreak without any basis,” and continues to ignore the fact that the WHO panel has repeatedly affirmed China’s demonstration of transparency.
The WHO International Panel of Experts on the Tracing of New Coronaviruses said last week that the new coronavirus was most likely transmitted to humans through an animal intermediate host and was highly unlikely to have escaped from a laboratory.
The U.S. White House expressed “deep concern” about the WHO’s virus investigation report. In a statement, White House national security adviser Sullivan said the investigation report must be independent and that expert findings should not be interfered with or altered by the Chinese government. He also stressed that China must provide the earliest data on the outbreak to help understand the Epidemic and prepare for the next pandemic.
British Foreign Secretary George Raab also said Sunday that he was concerned about whether the WHO investigation team would get all the data it needed. He told the BBC, “We are all concerned about whether they are getting full cooperation and getting the answers they need, so we will be pushing for it to have full access to all the data it needs to be able to answer the answers I think most people want to hear about the outbreak.”
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