10 Jul 2020

Helen Clark joint lead of WHO investigation into Covid-19

From Morning Report, 8:10 am on 10 July 2020

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says an investigation into the World Health Organisation's handling of Covid 19 will inevitably look at every step it took to tackle the pandemic - including criticisms it favoured China and was too slow to respond. It was announced this morning Helen Clark will jointly lead an investigation into the WHO's handling of the crisis ... alongside Liberia's former president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. The World Health Organisation says the so-called Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response will analyse where the coronavirus originated and how to prevent the future outbreak of pandemics, as well as how countries responded to the virus. A short time ago, I spoke to the BBC's correspondent in Geneva, Imogen Foulkes, who says the WHO has always said it would do such an investigation.