Taiwan tried to warn the world about COVID-19's transmissibility but China suppressed that information, according to a New Jersey radiologist.
In an Aug. 2 Twitter post, Nicole Saphier accused China's Communist Party of lying "about the Covid-19 outbreak & human-to-human transmission" very early in the pandemic.
"Small but mighty Taiwan tried to warn us, but they were silenced & ignored," Saphier continued in her Twitter post. "The people of Taiwan deserve more than a delayed visit by a U.S. official not supported by the White House."
In May 2020, Time reported Taiwan said it tried to warn the world about the COVID-19 virus. Time reported Taiwan’s health officials "fired off an email to the World Health Organization asking for more information" Dec. 31, 2019, after hearing that patients in the Chinese city of Wuhan were falling sick.
The Time report alleged Taiwan and U.S. officials claim WHO ignored the early warning about COVID-19 and the potential of its spread between humans.
WHO "provided a false sense of security to the world," Dr. Lo Yi-chun, deputy director-general of Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control, said, according to the Time report. He said WHO should have responded to Taiwan's email by launching its own investigation.
In the wake of the email, the WHO followed China's lead and assured the world there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission," despite cases emerging that seemed to indicate otherwise, Time reported.
Saphier's Twitter post came the same day U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., arrived in Taiwan, leading a senior Congressional delegation. News outlets worldwide, including Politico, reported Pelosi's visit to Taiwan made her the highest ranking U.S. official to visit the nation in 25 years, sparking threats from China.
Pelosi reportedly dismissed those threats from the Asian superpower during a news conference in Taipei, according to Politico's Aug. 3 story.
"Whether it’s certain insecurities on the part of the president of China as to his own political situation that he's ratting his saber, I don’t know," Pelosi said, according to Politico. "But what matters to us is that we salute the successes of Taiwan, we work together for the security of Taiwan and we just take great lessons from the democracy in Taiwan."
Pelosi also said her Taiwan visit was meant to show American solidarity with Taiwan and that she would "focus on our support for our partner and on promoting our shared interests."
Various news outlets, U.S. News reported Aug. 3 China planned to ramp up military exercises in response to Pelosi's visit, including flying missiles over Taiwan.
"Through multiple channels and at various levels, China has repeatedly made clear firm opposition to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, but the U.S. side apparently refused to take the message seriously," Chinese government spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a Twitter post Aug. 3. "That's why China was forced to 'speak' to them in a way and with the 'language' that they can understand."
"It is both unprecedented and highly provocative," MIT professor Taylor Fravel said in the U.S. News report. He noted the missile launch threats were "clearly designed to intimidate the people of Taiwan and underscore the threat of Chinese missiles to the island."
