In his opening speech Tedros Gehbreyesus said:
“Member States have committed to the historic task of delivering a pandemic agreement and a package of amendments to improve the International Health Regulations to the World Health Assembly in May of this year. (…) This work is not easy, and it is occurring in a very difficult environment. The INB and the IHR working group are operating amid a torrent of fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories.
There are those who claim that the pandemic agreement and IHR will cede sovereignty to WHO and give the WHO Secretariat the power to impose lockdowns or vaccine mandates on countries. You know this is fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories. These claims are completely false. You know that the agreement will give WHO no such powers, because you are writing it.
We cannot allow this historic agreement, this milestone in global health, to be sabotaged by those who spread lies, either deliberately or unknowingly. We need your support to counter these lies, by speaking up at home and telling your citizens that this agreement and an amended IHR will not, and cannot, cede sovereignty to WHO and that it belongs to the Member States.”
One could take this seriously if it were not so easy to prove that it is sheer, desperate polemic. After all, none other than a review committee formed by representatives of some member states ruled a year ago that a number of the proposals under consideration would disempower member states in favour of the WHO. Seen in this light, the Director-General himself is spreading grossly misleading information when he claims that only malicious, lying or stupid minds would think up the danger of a loss of national sovereignty in order to sabotage the WHO in its divine work.
The issue of vaccination mandates is also not as clear-cut as the head of the WHO makes it out to be. After all, the WHO has adopted the infamous EU vaccination passport as a permanent institution for worldwide use if required. If you make it a prerequisite for international travel, you are already very close to an indirect vaccination mandate. All that is needed is an agreement between the WHO, the USA, the EU and perhaps China and India. All other countries would de facto have no say.
Unfortunately for Tedros, many of the less powerful states, who fear the loss of sovereignty above all else, have already smelled a rat and are not willing to be disempowered so easily in favour of the big pharmaceutical companies of the industrialised countries. This is why the WHO chief feels compelled to urge and admonish:
“There are still important differences under discussion. And these are difficult discussions. (…) As I said this morning, you will not reach consensus if everyone remains entrenched in their positions. It will take patience, courage, innovative thinking, and above all, compromise, and finding a middle ground. To deliver on time, everyone will have to give something, or no one will get anything.”
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