Pointing fingers won’t beat coronavirus, former UN head Ban Ki-moon tells RT

Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has criticized leaders in Washington and London for “pointing fingers” at China during the coronavirus pandemic. “Not a single country” has the capacity to fight the virus alone, he told RT.

Politicians in London suggest that China will face a “reckoning” from Britain after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides, due to its initial attempts to downplay the threat of the virus. Speaking on RT’s Going Underground, Ban Ki-moon said that “pointing fingers” during a time of crisis hampers a true international response to the crisis.

“Not a single country, however powerful… has the capacity” to contain the outbreak, he said. Information sharing, and not animosity, will defeat the deadly virus, the former UN secretary general added.

“There should be clear and much closer coordination and support between and among the countries,” he said. “The virus doesn’t respect any borders, ethnicities, race or countries. Therefore, it’s very important that we share… experiences and know-how.”

More than a million people worldwide have been infected by the coronavirus, and nearly 60,000 have died.

While the problem may be an international one, Ban Ki-moon criticized countries for putting their short-term interests first without looking at the global perspective, although he said he understands why they do it. The former UN chief backed a plan by the organization in which member states would chip in 10 percent of their GDP to the UN in the name of fighting the pandemic, as well as a UN “Response and Recovery Fund” to “support efforts in low- and middle-income countries.”  

“That’s what global leadership means,” he said. “We need the global community to act in solidarity.”

However, with the coronavirus shattering the traditional unity of the EU, with Britain going its own way post-Brexit, and with President Donald Trump snapping up supplies from allied countries in an ‘America First’ response to the virus, Ban Ki-moon and the UN may be waiting some time to see their vision come to life.

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