WHO Director-General's Advisor: "Japanese Science Subordinated to Politics, Delayed COVID Response"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Onyu Lim] Kenji Shibuya, senior advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) and professor at King's College London (KCL), sharply criticized Japanese experts who have been unable to raise their voices regarding the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). He stated that science was subordinated to politics, which delayed the response to COVID-19.

In an interview with the Japanese weekly magazine Aera published on the 18th, Professor Shibuya was asked whether the expert panel formed by the Japanese government to respond to COVID-19 fulfilled its role. He bluntly said, "It seems that science was not independent from politics," adding, "This is a big problem."

He believed that when the meeting was held on the 1st, the members must have known that "Tokyo was in the early stage of an infection explosion." Nevertheless, instead of recommending a state of emergency declaration, they mixed in views that relaxed the tension of Japanese people by saying, "In our country, the overshoot (explosive increase in infections) seen in many foreign countries is not observed."

Professor Shibuya cited Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the National Institutes of Health, as an example of someone who voiced a different opinion from then-President Donald Trump. He said, "He said, 'I am a scientist and a doctor. That's all.' It seems that such a figure is currently absent from the (Japanese) expert panel."

He diagnosed that not only did the expert panel fail to function properly, but also that the declaration of a state of emergency was "one week late."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.