Type to search

News

WHO Director-General Tedros ‘can sometimes be a bit naive,’ advisers say of China praise: Report

Chris White on May 16, 2020

World Health Organization advisers told Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to tone down his rhetoric after he said he wanted to publicly praise China’s supposed quick virus response in January, a Friday report shows.

Tedros wanted to commend China after he returned from Beijing in late January, but advisers warned him that such a move would not be perceived well, sources told Reuters in a report on the director-general’s discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Reuters did not explain why the sources were anonymous but did note that Tedros was adamant about his praise.

“We knew how it was going to look, and he can sometimes be a bit naive about that,” one source familiar with the discussions told Reuters. “But he’s also stubborn.”

Tedros’ decision was in part designed to push China into cooperating with the WHO on the virus outbreak, according to Reuters. The WHO has not responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment about Reuters’ report or to confirm Tedros’ intentions for praising China.

China “cooperated on issues we had sought support on,” the WHO told Reuters in a statement explaining why it praised the communist nation. It also noted that the country provided information on the virus’s genetic coding.

Recent reports suggest China relied on Tedros to help push out Chinese talking points.

Xi reportedly met Tedros on Jan. 21 for help suppressing information about human-to-human transmission of coronavirus, according to German intelligence. “The BND’s verdict is harsh: At least four, if not six, weeks have been lost in Beijing’s information policy in the fight against the virus,” Der Spiegel noted in its May 9 report on Germany’s assessment.

The WHO repeated China’s claim in a Jan. 14 tweet that coronavirus was not transmittable between humans.

The first case of coronavirus, or COVID-19, is believed to have appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. It has since spread to more than 36 other countries, reaching a global death toll of more than 300,000, according to the CDC data. The virus is credited with killing roughly 87,000 people in the United States.

Reuters’ report also comes as President Donald Trump’s administration considers whether to enact financial punishment on China for worsening the pandemic by initially concealing the virus’s seriousness. He floated the possibility of ending all ties with the communist nation over the matter.

“Now, if you did, what would happen? You’d save $500 billion if you cut off the whole relationship,” Trump said during a May 14 Fox Business interview. He was referring to the total cost of Chinese imports. Such imports from China cost the United States $452 billion dollars in 2019, according to the Census Bureau.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Scroll down to comment!

12 Comments

  1. JoeyP May 17, 2020

    DEFUND the WHO! . . . They’re about as WORTHLESS as the UN. Team Trump and his allies 2020.

  2. Jojodmonkey May 17, 2020

    Naive? No Tedros is an evil corrupt democrat!
    The CCP, Democrats, soros, Facui, and the WHO have murdered 312,239 human beings of which 88,754 are American citizens as of 10:00 hrs 17/05/2020!
    This doesn’t include the millions of babies they have murdered with their abortions!

  3. Tim Simpson May 17, 2020

    China bought and paid off Tedros . It is a dam shame between Tedros and China ccp that so many lives were lost and I am sure many more may die. This was not a mistake and is a act of war from China their intensons were very obvious and what’s your intent was for.

  4. messup May 17, 2020

    Today is Sunday and God is in Control. .PBS (now Chinese owned) published a full report, aired on Sunday morning (5/17/20 – touting “Open Borders” (George Soros’ “Open Border Society”) for all Latin America. Specifically, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina. Unvaccinated, undocumented, Venezuelan’s fleeing an oppressive (Marxist/communist) corrupt governance! Report focused on lack of “Open Borders.” USA was in the shadows of this Chinese driven hour long drivel. Now. let’s look at differences between SATANISM (Marxist/communism as practiced by China and Thedros’ WHO) and GOOD (Laissez-faire, capitalism) in a Constitutional Republic(by Trump Administration)…really is simple: Marxist/communism (Satanism) if it is GOOD (Laissez-faire capitalism), that’s BAD, But if it is BAD (Satanism and Marxist/communism) that’s GOOD. This is what The “Free World” is up against (and WHO’s propaganda machine)…simple choice! One has God in Control (Laissez-faire capitalism), the opposite (Marxist/communism) has SATAN in control. Which is going to win on November 2020? Pray. Amen. God Bless America. Read A Bible. NKJV. Psalm 128. A Bible Study program is good primer. 10 Commandments everywhere. Vote.

  5. Anonymous May 17, 2020

    The WHO and Tedros are worthless Chinese puppets. Hope that President Trump never restores the funding to the WHO.
    The communist party of China is the party of lies and oppression. The pathetic demorats are incapable of defending the USA. They d rather defend the enemy.

  6. pete May 17, 2020

    Bah humbug! By naive, they mean to say stupidly in the pocket of Chinese Communists!

  7. Galtha58 May 17, 2020

    Great. Naive and stubborn. Not the description of someone who should be in a leadership position. Fire him.

  8. Demonangel May 17, 2020

    Someone in his position can’t afford to be naive. It’s more like he’s being paid under the table to look stupid. Either way, he’s got to go. A complete overhaul of WHO is way past due. Defund until “shake-up” is complete. Just sayin’.

  9. Anonymous May 17, 2020

    How did the virus get transmitted across the globe, to 36 countries? To Nursing homes in NY. Even to States internal to the USA? Who carried it? From where? How many?

  10. Terry May 17, 2020

    Three coverups on disease spread while in charge of public health in Ethiopia. He was hand selected by China to coverup for them.

  11. Nick Luy May 17, 2020

    Tedros is not naïve. He most likely collected his commission on January. So he was mute. He is as communist as Xi. WHO was wrong all along this pandemic. Fauci was wrong too. So the science is not exact. We need to go back to normal. Follow Sweden model. Schools are open there as in Canada. Slovenia and New Zealand are back to normal. Blue states will ruin the economy. Let’s fight to open our country.

  12. Greg ostman May 18, 2020

    I assume process to pick WHO Grand poor-bah is by the member nations but probably influenced greatly by the biggest players so mostly US, China, EU members and Russia, which I’m not sure is a member but still has influence in most things.Since China started throwing money at any country who’ll take it, US included, their influence is well established and growing. In the ONE WORLD we all live in we shouldn’t be surprised by anything. Our whole govt is and has allowed all the situations we are in today and going forward and we shouldn’t fool ourselves thinking they have our backs, they all have an agenda. We’ll never “get it right” so all we can do is try and mitigate the damage but as long as we’re all screaming at each other and distracted the powers that be and players are getting what they want. I think Trump is trying to disrupt the game for the better but even as US president not sure how much the “players” will allow him to, and I’m not claiming he doesn’t have his own agenda. With all the high and mighty altruism that the worlds wealthy are always spewing you can’t say they collectively do as much as they claim , but then again it’s their choice and right and we have no right to force them to. We’re a mess on our best days so all we can hope is most people do good most of the time but beware, people involved!

DON’T MISS OUT!
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
There are a million ways to get your news.
We want to be your one in a million.
Stay Updated
Give it a try, you can unsubscribe anytime.
close-link
Send this to a friend