Recently, a leaked Congressional report claims that China allegedly tried to hide the severity of the coronavirus disease when it was first discovered with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO). Officials said the move allowed the virus to become a deadly pandemic.
The report is set to be released on Monday and details how the COVID-19 pandemic was likely preventable when it first started to spread.
WHO and China
According to Daily Mail, United States President Donald Trump supported the report's contents and criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping for his response to the pandemic. He stated that the Asian leader could have easily prevented the spread of the virus.
U.S. lawmakers accused China of destroying evidence to downplay the threat of the coronavirus. In February, Beijing moved to suppress exports of face masks and personal protective equipment to U.S. companies.
The director-general of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has continued to praise China for its response to the coronavirus pandemic and how it openly provides information about the virus. The comments come even though it was discovered that Beijing has purposely withheld positive cases, which was added to its total count in April.
Auditors of the House Foreign Affairs wrote that the WHO has been coordinating with China in the spread of the propaganda that allows disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. It also noted that Director-General Tedros is responsible for aiding the Chinese efforts.
On January 3, Beijing warned the WHO of a potentially new and deadly viral disease, which was known as a strain of viral pneumonia that resulted from an unknown cause. The virus was first discovered in the city of Wuhan.
Preventable deaths
The report stated that research revealed up to 95 percent of cases could have been prevented if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had been more open about the information it had on the coronavirus pandemic, as reported by the New York Post.
However, the documents said that the move to close and sanitize Wuhan during the initial discovery of the virus destroyed any forensic evidence that could have provided valuable information to the origins of the virus.
On January 2, Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists was able to complete a full genetic sequence of the COVID-19 virus, which they observed to be highly contagious. However, they did not immediately disclose the information to the WHO.
The report accuses the WHO of ignoring several warnings from the Taiwan Centers of Disease Control and the government of Hong Kong of the virus's potential to be transmitted between humans.
The human-to-human transmission was ignored for several weeks because Chinese authorities said they found no evidence to support the claim. The statement comes despite Beijing knowing it was genetically similar to the 2002 SARS strain, which was also able to transfer between human hosts.
According to The New York Times, Trump accused the WHO on Monday of its alarming dependence on China. The U.S. president's letter to Tedros wrote that the agency had continued to make erroneous responses to the pandemic that has been costly to people worldwide.
