China pressured the World Health Organization (WHO) against declaring the coronavirus pandemic a global health emergency, a senior U.S. intelligence official told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
That official’s account confirms aspects of Newsweek’s reporting, which cited a CIA report stating that China urged the WHO not to declare the pandemic a global health emergency.
The WHO, the health arm of the United Nations, was supposed to decide on Jan. 22 whether to declare a global health emergency, but WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ended up delaying the decision until the next day.
In his statement announcing the delay, Tedros praised “the cooperation of China’s Minister of Health, who I have spoken with directly during the last few days and weeks.”