Trump backs Australia push for coronavirus inquiry amid China trade backlash
- by Emilio Sims
- in Money
- — May 19, 2020
Another prospect that China objected to vehemently - a Taiwanese presence at the World Health Assembly - also dissolved Monday after Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Taiwan would withdraw its bid for observer status, which Beijing had been blocking.
The Chinese government has repeatedly characterized the pandemic as a crisis that is global in nature and called any targeted inquiry that draws disproportionate attention to covid-19's roots in Wuhan as an unfair plan by Washington and its allies to make it a scapegoat.
All 194 World Health Organization member states are scheduled to attend the 73rd World Health Assembly virtually.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, have claimed with confidence that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology-a research lab a few miles away from the wildlife market.
Azar said the United States supported "an independent review of every aspect of WHO's response".
Trump has also said the World Health Organization is too deferential to China, saying the country was slow to share details about how the virus works and sought to minimize early portrayals of an epidemic that has now killed more than 300,000 people worldwide.
India on Monday joined almost 120 countries at a crucial conference of the World Health Organisation in pushing for an impartial and comprehensive evaluation of the global response into the coronavirus crisis as well as to examine the origin of the deadly infection.
According to Tedros, preliminary tests in some countries showed that, at most, 20 per cent of populations had contracted the disease.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has described the push for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus as completely unremarkable. Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse delivered a baffling high-school commencement speech on Sunday in which he attempted to inject some levity - "Remember that time that China started a big global pandemic that created the worst public health crisis in over a century and brought the economy to its knees?".
China said it will contribute two billion dollars over the next two years for the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese President, Xi Jinping on Monday announced.
"We have shared control and treatment experience with the world without reservation", Mr Xi said.
In this sense, Barbados requested to support and safeguard human lives despite discrepancies and difficulties, because the world looks at all of us with great expectations and prevails the solidarity of various countries, as Cuba has done, a gesture that it appreciated for its disinterested medical assistance.in the middle of the pandemic.
Chen said Taiwan had not received an invitation to the meeting.
It also defended the organisation, saying "an imperfect and evolving understanding" is not unusual during the early phase of a novel disease emergence and, in an apparent rejoinder to Trump, said "rising politicisation of pandemic response" was hindering the effort to defeat the virus. "And geopolitical divisions have been thrown into sharp relief".
Tedros, who has always promised a post-pandemic review, said it would come "at the earliest appropriate moment" and would provide recommendations for future preparedness.
"This work should be based on science and professionalism, led by World Health Organization and conducted in objective and impartial manner", he said.