WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is in a tough spot. He was either misinformed about the virus from within or in the tank for China.
So let me add my name to the growing list of people calling for his resignation. In fact, there is a petition out there that goes like this:
“We strongly think Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is not fit for his role as WHO Director General,” the petition with 853,000 signatures, posted on the Change.org website, states, calling for the official’s immediate resignation.
“A lot of us are really disappointed,” the petition continues. “We believe WHO is supposed to be politically neutral. Without any investigation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus solely believes on [sic] the death and infected numbers that the Chinese government provided with them.” U.S. lawmakers have been among Tedros’ harshest critics. On Thursday, a group of Republicans from the House Oversight Committee wrote to Tedros, demanding that he disclose the precise nature of his relationship with Chinese officials.
“Throughout the crisis, the WHO has shied away from placing any blame on the Chinese government, which is in essence the Communist Party of China,” the Republicans wrote. “You, as leader of the WHO, even went so far as to praise the Chinese government’s ‘transparency’ during the crisis, when, in fact, the regime has consistently lied to the world by underreporting their actual infection and death statistics.”
The GOP letter cited a January message on Twitter in which the WHO said Chinese authorities found “no clear evidence” of human-to-human transmission of the virus, also known as COVID-19.
My guess is that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will resign on his own. Why? Because the WHO faces a funding review and it’s “China-centric” attitude has not made a lot of friends in the U.S. Congress.
President Trump must run for reelection on a theme of reevaluating all of our arrangements with these so-called international organizations, from the WHO to the WTO and, yes, the UN.
