Australia lobbies for probe to find origin of virus
Australia sought support for an international probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in calls with US President Donald Trump and major powers, but France and Britain said now is the time to fight Covid-19 and not apportion blame.
Australia’s push for an independent review, including the response of the World Health Organisation (WHO), has drawn sharp criticism from China, which has accused Australian legislators of taking instructions from the US.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Twitter he had “a very constructive discussion” with Trump on the two nations’ responses to Covid-19 and the need to get economies up and running.
“We also talked about the WHO & working together to improve the transparency & effectiveness of the international responses to pandemics.”
The White House has been fiercely critical of China and the WHO, and has withdrawn US funding from the UN agency.
Morrison also spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron by phone about the role of the WHO, his office said.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has repeatedly said that the UN agency will evaluate its handling of the pandemic after it ends and draw the appropriate lessons, as it does after all emergencies.
Macron told Morrison now is not the time for an investigation, a French official said. “He says he agrees that there have been some issues at the start, but that the urgency is for cohesion, that it is no time to talk about this, while reaffirming the need for transparency for all players, not only the WHO,” an Élysée official told Reuters.
A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there will be a time when Britain will have to look at the lessons to be learnt from the crisis, but for now ministers are focused on fighting Covid-19.
In Berlin, the government confirmed that Merkel had spoken with Morrison on Tuesday. Last Friday, her spokesperson said: “The coronavirus appeared first in China. China has suffered a lot from the virus and did a lot to fight against spreading.”
The coronavirus, believed to have emerged in a market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, was first reported by China to the WHO on December 31. The WHO informed member states of the outbreak on January 5 and warned publicly a week later that there was “limited” humanto-human transmission.
WHO officials arrived in Wuhan on January 20, after the virus had spread to three other countries. It declared a global emergency on January 30.
The virus has since infected more than 2.6-million people and killed more than 186,000.
Australia is examining whether the WHO should be given powers, similar to those of international weapons inspectors, to enter a country to investigate an outbreak without having to wait for consent, a government source said.
Senior Australian legislators have questioned Beijing’s transparency over the pandemic. China’s embassy in Canberra said in a statement late on Tuesday they were acting as a mouthpiece for Trump and “certain Australian politicians are keen to parrot what those Americans have asserted and simply follow them in staging political attacks on China”.
Australia has recorded just more than 6,600 cases of the virus nationally. Infection rates have slowed from 25% in midMarch to less than 1% a day. Legislators plan to ease some curbs, with Australia’s iconic Bondi Beach to partially open next week.