Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (W.H.O. ), carried the Olympic torch in Beijing, extending his support to an event that has been boycotted by several nations in protest against China’s record on human rights. Tedros’ participation at the Winter Olympics fuels the accusations that his relationship with the Chinese Communist Party is too intimate to allow him to do his job faithfully, resulting in the World Health Organization’s catastrophic failures to control the coronavirus pandemic and inspect its origins.
When Tedros took over the top role at the World Health Organization in 2017, he benefitted from Beijing’s backing. It is noteworthy that Tedros is the first director-general without a medical degree. Moreover, he was accused of covering up epidemics in his home Ethiopia before being suspected of assisting in the cover-up of the origins of the Chinese coronavirus. Tedros was re-elected to his second term as president of the W.H.O. in an uncontested election last month.
Tedros wrote on Twitter on Friday, expressing thanks for the opportunity to carry the Olympic flame. He said that Olympics is about hope, solidarity, unity, and peace. Especially hope to end this pandemic. The WHO director-general went to say that the Olympic Games bring the nations of the world together in competition, as athletes strive to fulfill the Olympic motto of ‘faster, higher, stronger, together. We must be stronger in removing every barrier that stands in our way and we must do it all together, he added.
General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus landed in Beijing on Thursday night for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony, his second trip to China since the COVID-19 epidemic began in late 2019 and early 2020.
