China stalled for ‘at least’ two weeks in providing the World Health Organization with detailed data on COVID-19 cases, frustrating WHO’s top echelons –  even as they tried to put on a positive public face, according to an investigative report by the Associated Press of exchanges that occured in January.

China also withheld the genome sequence of the COVID-19 virus for over a week, releasing it only on  11 January – though three separate government labs in China had already sequenced the SARS-CoV-2 virus as of 3 January, states the AP report. . 

As the World Health Organization publicly praised Beijing for ‘immediately’ sharing the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in January, internal WHO meetings record the “considerable frustration” of  WHO officials with the “significant delays” in China’s timely release of the gene sequence and other critical information,  according to the AP report, which it said was based on dozens of confidential interviews as well as written and audio recordings of internal WHO conversations in early January. 

“We have informally and formally been requesting more epidemiological information,” WHO’s top China official, Gauden Galea, was quoted as saying in one critical meeting. “But when asked for specifics, we could get nothing.

“We’re currently at the stage where yes, they’re giving [the necessary information] to us 15 minutes before it appears on CCTV,” Galea added, referring to the state-owned China Central Television.

In the second week of January, WHO’s chief of emergencies, Dr. Michael Ryan, reportedly told other WHO colleagues it was time to “shift gears” and apply more pressure on China, saying that he feared China’s lack of transparency would lead to a repeat of circumstances similar to those that fueled the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome 2002, which began in China but led to the deaths of nearly 800 people worldwide.

“This is exactly the same scenario, endlessly trying to get updates from China about what was going on,” he is quoted as saying. With reference to SARS, he added:  “WHO barely got out of that one with its neck intact given the issues that arose around transparency in southern China.”

In fact, the WHO management of SARS under former director general Gro Harlem Brundtland, who publicly called out Beijing for its lack of transparency, and then issued an unprecedented  advisory against travel to the country, has been heralded, even by US President Donald Trump, as exemplary.

Wedged between Two Superpowers

The AP report comes as WHO has faced a hail of criticism from the United States, culminating in Friday’s decision by Trump to withdraw the United States membership in the UN agency and terminate its funding.

The AP report provides a fresh narrative of the China-WHO dealings, one which ultimately left the global health organization trapped in a bitter United States-China rivalry – even though its own collaboration with China was laced with internal frustrations, which officials were loathe to express publicly at the risk of information flow further drying up.

Already on 6 January, the WHO had privately complained about being kept in the dark as China gave it insufficient information despite the legal provisions of the International Health Regulations: “We’re going on very minimal information,” said WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, Maria van Kerkhove, at another internal meeting, cited by AP. “It’s clearly not enough for you to do proper planning.”

Given the WHO’s position, public praise  of China was probably the only strategy at its disposal to secure access to crucial epidemiological data, public health experts familiar with the organization noted.    

If the WHO pushed too hard on Beijing, WHO officials might even have been expelled from the country, Adam Kamradt-Scott, global health professor at the University of Sydney told AP. In mid-March, China kicked out American journalists from the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post – most of whom aggressively reported on the evolving COVID-19 epidemic in its earliest days as the Chinese government tried to play down its severity.

WHO – Lack of Enforcement Power

In Friday’s announcement over the severing of ties, Trump charged that WHO had given into Chinese pressures to coverup its mistakes in the coronavirus response, “China has total control over the World Health Organization.”

But the fundamental weakness by the AP report uncovered is not any active collusion, but rather WHO’s lack of enforcement power in health emergencies. This means that WHO must rely entirely on voluntary cooperation from countries. It does not have the power to compel nations to do what it says, nor to independently investigate outbreaks in countries. 

Even so, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ efforts to coax China into cooperation while avoiding any public criticism of Beijing for its handling of the pandemic has come at a high price.

“It’s definitely damaged WHO’s credibility,” said Kamradt-Scott told AP. “Did he go too far? I think the evidence on that is clear….it has led to so many questions about the relationship between China and WHO. It is perhaps a cautionary tale.”

AP notes that WHO officials named in its story declined to answer questions posed about the internal meetings, without direct access to audio or written transcripts of the recorded meetings, “which the AP was unable to supply to protect its sources.”

For more details on the unfolding of COVID-19 in its early stages and the politics of China;s response that cost many lives, see AP’s full report here.

Image Credits: WHO/Pierre Virot, WHO.