Geneva:Two days after President Donald Trump announced he was pulling the United States from the World Health Organization, the U.N. body’s chief pleaded through tears for international unity in the face of the coronavirus, stating the WHO will launch an independent panel to investigate its response to the pandemic.
“How is it difficult for humans to unite and fight a common enemy that is killing people indiscriminately?” asked an emotional WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday during a COVID-19 briefing. “Are we unable to distinguish or identify the common enemy? Can’t we understand that the division and the cracks between us are an advantage for the virus?”
Tedros said some 12 million people have been infected with COVID-19 and more than 500,000 lives have been lost to the pandemic since the first infection was diagnosed late last year in China but it is getting worse, “the pandemic is accelerating” with the number of infections having doubled in the last six weeks.
The virus has left no country untouched and has impacted virtually everyone alive but the greatest threat humanity faces is not the virus itself but rather “the lack of leadership and solidarity” at both the global and national levels, he said.
