Berlin: A bombshell report claims Chinese President Xi Jinping personally asked World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom to ‘delay a global warning’ about the threat of COVID-19 during a conversation back in January.
Germany’s Der Spiegel published the allegations this weekend, citing intelligence from the country’s Federal Intelligence Service, known as the ‘Bundesnachrichtendienst’ (BND).
According to the BND: ‘On January 21, China’s leader Xi Jinping asked WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to hold back information about a human-to-human transmission and to delay a pandemic warning.
‘The BND estimates that China’s information policy lost four to six weeks to fight the virus worldwide’.
The WHO released a statement shortly after the publication of the shock claims, calling them ‘unfounded and untrue’.
‘Dr Tedros and President Xi did not speak on January 21 and they have never spoken by phone. Such inaccurate reports distract and detract from WHO’s and the world’s efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic,’ the statement read.
It continued: ‘China confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus on January 20 [prior to the alleged phone conversation].
‘The WHO publicly declared on January 22 that “data collected … suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan.”‘