Nearly half a million people have signed a petition demanding the resignation of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general accusing Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of kowtowing to China and mishandling the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) response.

Torontonian hair stylist Osuka Yip started a petition titled “Call for the resignation of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General” on Change.org on Jan 31, citing Adhanom’s refusal on Jan 23 to designate the COVID-19, referred to at the time as the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV), a global health emergency^[1]https://www.change.org/p/united-nations-call-for-the-resignation-of-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus-who-director-general.

“A lot of us are really disappointed, we believe WHO is supposed to be politically neutral,” the petition reads. “Without any investigation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus solely believes in the death and infected numbers that the Chinese government provided with them.”

“On the other hand, Taiwan should not be excluded from WHO for any political reasons,” Yip writes on the petition. “Their technologies are far more advanced than some of the countries on the “selected WHO list”.

The World Health Organization initially declared that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” citing “investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities.”

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

It later emerged that China’s communist government tried to hide the truth about the coronavirus with Chinese scientists going as far to destroy proof of the virus in December^[2]https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-scientists-destroyed-proof-of-virus-in-december-rz055qjnj.

Dr. Tedros, as the WHO director-general likes to call himself, came under heavy criticism during his time as Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister from 2012 to 2016 for being Pro-Beijing human rights violator.

Once when Human Rights Watch presented a report documenting egregious human rights violations during of Ethiopian government’s brutal crackdown of opposition protests, Dr. Tedros reacted angrily, accusing the respected human rights organization of “encouraging opposition violence in Ethiopia.”^[3]https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/04/open-letter-government-ethiopia

Dr. Tedros is also accused of covering up Ethiopia’s Cholera epidemic during his time as the African country’s health minister^[4]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/18/ethiopias-candidate-for-the-world-health-organization-doesnt-like-mentioning-a-certain-disease/ by refusing to refer to the disease by its name and instead calling it “acute watery diarrhea” (AWD).

Dr. Tedros was so disliked by international pro-democracy activists that protestors even disrupted the world health assembly where Dr. Tedros was elected with China’s backing and #NoTedros4WHO started trending on Twitter.

The message is loud & clear and delegates from across the globe have heard it. #NoTedros4WHO #WHA70 @WHO pic.twitter.com/vSroY6msS6

— Michael C. Mammo (@Jirra100) May 22, 2017

The World Health Organization finally declared COVID-19 a pandemic after the coronavirus infected 126,000 people in 124 countries causing 4,600.

The current global count of coronavirus cases stand at 294,110 confirmed cases with an official death toll of 12,944 with the disease now having been reported in 187 countries or territories.