As the coronavirus continues to spread across the country, some politicians are demanding answers on how the virus seems to have caught the world off guard.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is calling for an investigation of the World Health Organization (WHO) for “promoting misinformation and helping Communist China cover up a global pandemic.”
“The mission of the WHO is to get public health information to the world so every country can make the best decisions to keep their citizens safe. When it comes to Coronavirus, the WHO failed,” Scott said in a statement on Tuesday.
He added, “They need to be held accountable for their role in promoting misinformation and helping Communist China cover up a global pandemic. We know Communist China is lying about how many cases and deaths they have, what they knew and when they knew it – and the WHO never bothered to investigate further.”
Scott continued to blast the WHO for “praising” China’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, citing a report from The Washington Post on February 8 that said the organization was “praising” Chinese officials.
Additionally, Scott noted a tweet from the WHO on January 14 that said, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the virus despite reports that said Chinese officials knew by late December that human transmission was possible.
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
Finally, Scott blasted the WHO for ignoring a question about Taiwan, which has not been allowed into the organization.
Scott’s comments about Taiwan were in reference to a video where a WHO official said he did not hear a question about Taiwan, and tried to move on. But, when pressed further on Taiwan, the official cut off the video call.
This is shameful. @WHO refuses to answer a basic question about #Taiwan, who they’ve refused to allow into the organization.
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) March 29, 2020
More and more, the WHO seems to be a pawn of the Chinese Communist Party, which is very dangerous for world health. https://t.co/5gsq7NlrP0
Scott also called for Congress to investigate the WHO to determine if the U.S. should contribute millions of dollars to the organization.
Currently, there are more than 177,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. with 3,440 coronavirus related deaths.