Why does he lie like this?
WHO Timeline (click here)
31 Dec 2019
China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified.
13 March 2020
By Josephine Ma
The first case of someone in China (click here) suffering from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, can be traced back to November 17, according to government data seen by the South China Morning Post.
Chinese authorities have so far identified at least 266 people who were infected last year, all of whom came under medical surveillance at some point....
1 January 2020
WHO had set up the IMST (Incident Management Support Team) across the three levels of the organization: headquarters, regional headquarters and country level, putting the organization on an emergency footing for dealing with the outbreak.
4 January 2020
WHO reported on social media that there was a cluster of pneumonia cases – with no deaths – in Wuhan, Hubei province.
5 January 2020
WHO published our first Disease Outbreak News on the new virus. This is a flagship technical publication to the scientific and public health community as well as global media. It contained a risk assessment and advice, and reported on what China had told the organization about the status of patients and the public health response on the cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
10 January 2020
WHO issued a comprehensive package of technical guidance online with advice to all countries on how to detect, test and manage potential cases, based on what was known about the virus at the time. This guidance was shared with WHO's regional emergency directors to share with WHO representatives in countries.
Based on experience with SARS and MERS and known modes of transmission of respiratory viruses, infection and prevention control guidance were published to protect health workers recommending droplet and contact precautions when caring for patients, and airborne precautions for aerosol generating procedures conducted by health workers.
12 January 2020
China publicly shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19.
13 January 2020
Officials confirm a case of COVID-19 in Thailand, the first recorded case outside of China.
14 January 2020
WHO's technical lead for the response noted in a press briefing there may have been limited human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus (in the 41 confirmed cases), mainly through family members, and that there was a risk of a possible wider outbreak. The lead also said that human-to-human transmission would not be surprising given our experience with SARS, MERS and other respiratory pathogens.
20-21 January 2020
WHO experts from its China and Western Pacific regional offices conducted a brief field visit to Wuhan.
22 January 2020
WHO mission to China issued a statement saying that there was evidence of human-to-human transmission in Wuhan but more investigation was needed to understand the full extent of transmission.
22- 23 January 2020
The WHO Director- General convened an Emergency Committee (EC) under the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) to assess whether the outbreak constituted a public health emergency of international concern. The independent members from around the world could not reach a consensus based on the evidence available at the time. They asked to be reconvened within 10 days after receiving more information.
28 January 2020
A senior WHO delegation led by the Director-General travelled to Beijing to meet China’s leadership, learn more about China’s response, and to offer any technical assistance.
While in Beijing, Dr. Tedros agreed with Chinese government leaders that an international team of leading scientists would travel to China on a mission to better understand the context, the overall response, and exchange information and experience....
March 6, 2020By Jon Cohen
Clifford Lane
On 13 February, Clifford Lane went to a Washington, D.C.(click here) –area airport to catch a flight to Japan, where he would help launch a study of an experimental drug, remdesivir, against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Lane is a deputy director at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a right-hand man to Anthony Fauci, head of NIAID and the top research scientist in the country advising the White House on the outbreak of the virus. As Lane waited to board his plane, he was told that his final destination had changed. “I get an email, ‘You need to go to China.’ It’s like, are you kidding?”
Lane had been selected as one of two U.S. scientists to join a World Health Organization team of 13 international researchers who would tour five different cities with 12 Chinese colleagues to get a firsthand look at the coronavirus epidemic there. The joint mission, which ran from 16–23 February led to a report that offered more details about the clinical course of COVID-19 and the epidemiology in China than had appeared anywhere before.
Lane is a clinician who has been on the front line of HIV/AIDS research and led studies of vaccines and treatments in Liberia during the West African Ebola epidemic in 2014–16. On 4 March, Lane, still under quarantine in his Maryland home, spoke with ScienceInsider about the China trip and his view of the situation in the United States....
March 25, 2020
By Marisa Taylor
Washington - The Trump administration cut staff (click here) by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters has learned.
Most of the reductions were made at the Beijing office of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and occurred over the past two years, according to public CDC documents viewed by Reuters and interviews with four people familiar with the drawdown.
The Atlanta-based CDC, America’s preeminent disease fighting agency, provides public health assistance to nations around the world and works with them to help stop outbreaks of contagious diseases from spreading globally. It has worked in China for 30 years.
The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the documents show. The four people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the losses included epidemiologists and other health professionals....
