South China Morning Post | July 22, 2021
The comments were the most public condemnation of a member state made by a director general since Gro Harlem Brundtland criticised China during the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003, according to Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Public Health Law & Human Rights at Georgetown University in the US.
“Clearly China has pushed him past his point of patience, and also he’s under a great deal of pressure from the West and there’s an election looming, so you’ve got three huge factors that have influenced his behaviour,” he said, referring to next year’s vote to select the next WHO director general.