Let’s investigate the leaders who bungled the COVID crisis so it doesn’t happen again

Astunning World Health Organization (WHO) report stating that 14.9 million people died as a result of COVID-19 — nearly three times more than officially reported by governments — makes me wonder whether several presidents shouldn’t be held accountable for having covered up the seriousness of the pandemic.

People tend to forget, but several leaders — including former President Donald Trump, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and India’s Prime Minister Narendra

Modi — shamelessly minimized the COVID-19 health crisis in 2020.

In many cases, these presidents mocked the effectiveness of vaccines and face masks, often against the advice of their own countries’ health authorities. That led to more contagions and slowed down nationwide public health prevention campaigns.

According to the new WHO report, there were only 5.4 million COVID-19 deaths officially reported by governments around the world in 2020 and 2021. But an additional

9.5 million deaths went unreported, in many cases because governments did not include people who died after being denied medical attention because of overwhelmed hospitals.

It may be no coincidence that many of the previously unreported COVID-19 deaths revealed by the WHO took place in India, Mexico, Brazil and the United States. The four countries were ruled by presidents who constantly downplayed the pandemic in 2020.

In the United States, Trump knew from the very beginning about the severity of the crisis, but chose to minimize it. Trump told journalist Bob Woodward in a taped February 2020 interview that COVID-19 is “deadly stuff,” but added that he decided to “play down” the pandemic so as not to scare people.

For much of 2020, Trump mocked people wearing face masks. His main concern, rather than saving lives, was preventing an economic slowdown that would have hurt his reelection chances.

More than a month after the WHO had declared COVID-19 to be a deadly pandemic, Trump tweeted on April 17, 2020, “Liberate Michigan!” telling his followers to resist that state’s Democratic governor’s decision to restrict public gatherings. On

Sept. 21, 2020, Trump claimed that COVID-19 “affects virtually nobody.”

In Mexico, Lopez Obrador traveled across the country without wearing a mask, held large public meetings, and said in March 2020 that Mexicans “should hug” without fear of contagion. Making fun of the pandemic, he claimed that wearing religious amulets and not lying or stealing protected him from COVID-19.

In Brazil, Bolsonaro said during an event with Trump on March 10, 2020, that COVID-19 was “a fantasy,” and continued mocking those wearing masks long after. In October, 2021, Bolsonaro told reporters he didn’t want to be “bored” with questions about the pandemic.

In India, the country that according to the latest WHO report has the biggest undercount of COVID-19 deaths, Modi spoke at massive maskless rallies, invited people to a religious festival that was attended by millions, and prematurely declared victory in the war against the virus. India had 10 times more COVID-related deaths than the government reported, the WHO report says.

Granted, you can make the point that not much was known about the pandemic in the first half of 2020. However, virtually all health authorities around the world were already advocating at the time for the use of face masks, and the need to get vaccinated.

It may be pointless to launch criminal probes against Trump, Bolsonaro, Lopez Obrador, Modi and other early pandemicskeptics, because it would be difficult to prove any criminal intent by any of them.

But the WHO should appoint an international truth commission, to look into what each of these leaders knew and when. That would help prevent irresponsible statements by heads of state that can cause millions of preventable deaths in the ongoing or future pandemics.

These millions of deaths, many of them unnecessary, are a monumental scandal. At the very least, an international truth commission could result in a recommendation that, in the future, heads of state keep their personal opinions to themselves, and follow the advice of their countries’ health authorities.

If that had happened, we would have saved many millions of lives over the past two years.

Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 7 pm ET on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera; Blog: www.andresoppenheimer .com