Politics

REPORT: China, WHO Could Have Acted Sooner To Prevent Pandemic, COVID-19 Probe Finds

Director General Of The World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom, Visit To Beijing

Naohiko Hatta - Pool/Getty Images

Anders Hagstrom White House Correspondent
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China and the World Health Organization (WHO) could have acted sooner to combat the coronavirus, a WHO panel on the origins of the disease in China reportedly announced Monday.

The WHO-backed Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) announced the finding in its latest report on the timeline of the pandemic, according to WION News. The WHO reportedly convened the IPPPR in July 2020 to investigate the timeline of the coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump’s administration has been heavily critical of the probe, with the White House describing the investigation as “ridiculous” and “too late.” The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also delayed the probe’s visit to China by two weeks in early January and has prevented the researchers from gathering their own samples. The panel’s reported finding comes weeks after the WHO probe’s earlier pledge to not find a “guilty” party in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump’s administration withdrew support from the WHO in early summer, arguing that the organization had parroted fraudulent coronavirus statistics from the CCP. President-Elect Joe Biden has said he will bring the U.S. back to the WHO, among other international organizations.

The WHO repeated assurances from the CCP in January 2020 that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus in Wuhan, where the disease began. (RELATED: China’s Propaganda Outlets Love WHO Official Bruce Aylward)

WHO officials and even Trump praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping for his “transparency” at the time. Trump has since become heavily critical of China’s handling of COVID-19, referring to the disease as the “China virus” or “China plague,” and vowing to hold the regime accountable.