COVID-19: UpdatePandemic cases hit 1.5 million

In the latest global COVID-19 developments, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said yesterday that pandemic activity in the region hasn’t peaked yet, despite early signs of decline in Italy and Austria, and the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) pushed back against President Donald Trump’s recent criticism.

Yesterday the pandemic total surpassed 1.5 million cases from 184 countries, with 87,984 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard. The ECDC’s latest analysis came in an update of its risk assessment, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, addressed Trump’s comments yesterday during a regularly scheduled media telebriefing.

Tedros Turns Back Trump Barbs
Yesterday on Twitter and at the White House daily briefing, President Trump questioned the timeliness of the WHO’s early warnings about the virus and accused it of being more aligned with China. He added that his administration would look into the situation and consider putting a hold on the US funding for the WHO.

During the course of the outbreak, China reportedly censored some of the doctors who sounded the first alarms about a mysterious pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, and as the outbreak unfolded, reports initially weren’t clear on issues such as human-to-human transmission and the extent of healthcare worker infections. In February, a WHO-led international expert team spent 2 weeks in China examining the outbreak and its response, bringing back crucial findings that helped inform the rest of the world.

When asked about Trump’s criticisms yesterday, Tedros said, “Please quarantine politicizing COVID.” He said there is no need to use COVID-19 to score political points, because countries have many other ways to prove themselves. He added that unity is the only option for fighting the virus. “If you don’t believe in unity, the worst is yet to come.”

Regarding the claim that the WHO is too close to China, he said the WHO is close to every nation. “We’re color blind. We’re wealth blind. Weak and strong, the same,” Tedros said. “We respect every nation. We work with every nation. We try to understand the problems of every nation.”

As with every global outbreak, the WHO will undertake an after-action review to assess its response and learn from any mistakes, he said.

Tedros added that he has shrugged off many personal attacks, some racist, that have included death threats, including some from groups in Taiwan.