The deputy prime minister of Japan slammed the World Health Organization, saying it should be called the China Health Organization amid speculation the communist government played down the number of people infected by the coronavirus.
“People think the World Health Organization should change its name,” Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said while speaking in the Japanese parliament on Wednesday, according to translators. “It shouldn’t be called the WHO. It should be renamed the CHO.”
“Early on, if the WHO had not insisted to the world that China had no pneumonia epidemic, then everybody would have taken precautions,” he continued.
WOW: Japanese official blasts China, says the WHO should be renamed the CHO — China Health Organization, given the Chinese Communist Party’s role in covering up the #coronavirus outbreak: pic.twitter.com/www1S2nRUu
— John Cooper (@thejcoop) April 1, 2020
Aso’s remarks come amid speculation the communist government played down the number of people infected by the coronavirus. Three U.S. officials said Wednesday that a classified report stated Beijing underreported the number of cases and deaths associated with the disease.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator, also said this week that China’s incomplete data set on the virus likely delayed other countries’ responses.
“I think when you look at the China data originally and you said, ‘Oh, well, there’s 80 million people — or 20 million people in Wuhan and 80 million people in Hubei,’ and they come up with the number of 50,000, you start thinking of this more like SARS than you do this kind of global pandemic,” Birx said.
“So I think the medical community interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious but smaller than anyone expected because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data [from China] — now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain,” she added.
President Trump warned the United States to brace for a “very, very painful” two weeks ahead as a “surge” in deaths is expected.
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks,” the president said, adding later that there will soon be “real light at the end of the tunnel.”
