TASS, May 6. The accusations hurled by the US at the World Health Organization (WHO) and China for allegedly covering up information on coronavirus origins and the epidemic scale seem to be put forward at an improper time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with CNBC published Wednesday.
- WHO would like to receive invitation from China to investigate the origin of coronavirus
- Lavrov slams criticism of WHO’s activities amid pandemic as unfair
- WHO not concealing anything from US, other nations — director general
- US attempts to accuse WHO of inefficiency counterproductive — diplomat
- Russian diplomat slams US accusations against WHO as politically motivated
- Trump’s statements on WHO funding fall in line with his election campaign, says expert
- Trump’s decision to stop funding WHO politicizes coronavirus situation, says lawmaker
- Russian diplomat slams Washington’s decision to suspend WHO funding
- Russia urges US to refrain from further attacks on WHO
- US sees WHO as interim target, main attack is due on China — lawmaker
- Kremlin sees no reason to believe China concealed information on coronavirus
- US hegemony and inaction: Expert blasts American states’ crusade to shift blame on China
- Russian lawmaker slams as unfair competition Trump’s words about China guilt for pandemic
- China could face consequences it was "knowingly responsible" for pandemic - Trump
- Ambassador says coronavirus imported to China, points to genetic sequence as proof
According to him, Moscow disagrees with high-ranking US officials claiming that China is responsible for the virus spread. "We consider it not a proper time, being somewhere in the middle of a severe crisis, an unprecedented crisis, to try to blame everything on the international health organization (the World Health Organization) or, the next day, on China," he stressed.
The spokesman also added that the US accusations are "very, very serious" and thus "you have to deliver proof" to back them up. "Without proof, we consider it wrong to attack third countries in this, let’s say, humbly speaking, non-diplomatic way," Peskov underlined.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly shared his view that Chinese authorities acted inefficiently in fighting the coronavirus outbreak and concealed detailed information regarding the scale of the epidemic. On April 18, Trump told a briefing in the White House that China may face consequences if it is proven that the country deliberately allowed the outbreak to happen. Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Le Yucheng told NBC reporters on April 29 that any demands to Beijing to compensate losses sustained in the pandemic are ridiculous and nothing but "political farce." The Chinese official also expressed regret that certain politicians are taking advantage of the virus developments to demonize China, underlining once again that Beijing did not conceal any information about the virus.
Moreover, Trump announced on April 14 that Washington suspended payments into the WHO budget. According to him, the money will not be transferred until the organization’s role in covering up the coronavirus spread data is investigated and analyzed. Commenting on the US actions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov branded attacks on WHO as unfair.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 3,700,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 258,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 1,200,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 165,929 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 21,327 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 1,537 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.