PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Wendy Bell on KDKA Radio on Wednesday that transparency amid the COVID-19 pandemic is an important factor in fighting the virus outbreak.
"We've been under this enormous challenge with this virus. It began in Wuhan, China and what we know, and think all of your listeners know, is that transparency matters. It's not about talking, it's about actions," he said.
"You need the data, you need sequence, you need to know where the cases are, how many, you need to know how they're being transmitted - all of the core elements have to get into the hands of the world's best scientists, which are often here, American scientists. We tried get it in China. We weren't successful at the front end and every nation has an obligation, even not looking backwards, even looking forward from today, to continue to share data so that we can save lives.
"When you don't, when you hide, when you obfuscate, when you penalize people who want to come forward who want to talk about what really happened - when those things happen inside of a country, you put lives at risk. That's just unacceptable - no country can do that."
"It performs important functions - important global health and pandemic functions - and we can see, in this case, we haven't been able to deliver on that. We need a global health organization can achieve that and if this one can't do it, then it's not appropriate for American taxpayer dollars to go towards it."
Litsten to the full interview below.
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