Revisiting questions posed to Katherine Watt about the WHO PHEIC on 30 January 2020 and U.S. PHE on 31 January 2020
No spread? No PHEIC
In this article, I revisit questions I posed to
in June 2025 related to the topic of the WHO’s 30 January 2020 Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) and U.S. Public Health Emergency determination. I documented our conversations here:
My interest in the PHEIC declaration stems from Christian Drosten saying in a 23 January 2020 email that “any emergence of a SARS-CoV is a PHEIC by definition and does not need specific decision by the [WHO IHR] emergency committee — a claim I evaluated in this recent article:
In brief, I said I see no evidence within the WHO’s International Health Regulations (2005) that a single case of SARS‑CoV automatically constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC); any notion to the contrary seem to be a result of misinterpretation or embellishment.
Below, I “answer” the questions I posed to Katherine Watt. These are my opinions based on what I learned while looking into what Drosten said and prior investigative work.
1. Was the WHO PHEIC declared on 30 January 2020 “fake” (false)? If so, could a lawsuit be brought against the WHO?
Per WHO-IHR (2005), a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is
"an extraordinary event which is determined as provided in these Regulations (i) to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and (ii) to potentially require a coordinated international response."1
I interpret this to mean that a disease of a certain kind or characteristics must be
detected via a national surveillance system,
spreading within a country, and
shown or assumed to pose a risk of spreading to other countries.
I initially wondered whether legal action could be taken against U.S. officials or the WHO if the PHEIC were proven false — i.e., if the criteria for declaring it had not been met and the decision-makers acted maliciously or disregarded contradictory or insufficient evidence.
I now believe the conditions were technically met, since all that was required was a detected “case” of SARS, “evidence” of spread within a country, and risk or incidence of international spread. Setting aside the (in)validity of what was being detected, and the lack of evidence for genuine human-to-human or airborne transmission, the declaration was made in accordance with the IHR framework. It wasn’t faked in a procedural sense.
That said, I regard all PHEICs as fake, because there is no such thing as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, including one supposedly involving a spreading, disease-causing SARS-related coronavirus.
2. Did US HHS Director Alex Azar “need” the WHO PHEIC in order to declare a Public Health Emergency on 31 January ?
Alex Azar declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE) for 2019-nCoV on 31 January 2020 — one day after the WHO issued its PHEIC.
I agree with Katherine Watt:
“To the extent that the worldwide, coordinated pandemic preparedness system is a deception project jointly executed by the US HHS-DoD-DHS-whole-of-government and the UN-World Health Organization, I think they have coordinated the drafting and adoption of the legal instruments each institution relies on as authorization for their respective actions.”
I also agree with her that Azar didn’t legally need the WHO’s PHEIC to declare a PHE, and that he and the WHO Director-General “added apparent weight and credibility” (a.k.a., gravitas) to and benefited from each other’s performances.1
Practically and politically, though, there’s an “order of operations”: As I read it, PHEIC precedes a pandemic declaration under the WHO IHR (2005).
Watt also wrote:
“Neither legal framework requires either performer to provide physical evidence that ‘something is spreading,’ or poses a threat to health, nor to submit any such evidence to any fact-finding, evidentiary-review tribunal.”
I agree. To my knowledge, no physical evidence has ever been produced demonstrating viral transmission of so-called respiratory viruses.
By late January 2020, the necessary story elements had been established: a “novel” agent had been detected, linked to a new disease, named, tested for, and said to be spreading human-to-human. All of these were prerequisites for the PHEIC.
Given those conditions and the dynamics at play, I don’t believe Azar would have declared a PHE without the WHO going first.
3. What is the significance of Azar backdating the 31 Jan 2020 PHE determination to 27 Jan 2020? (Why did he do that?/Why was he told to do that?)
I observed that Azar’s 30 January 2020 PHE determination was backdated to 27 January 2020:
As a result of confirmed cases of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), on this date and after consultation with public health officials as necessary, I, Alex M. Azar II, Secretary of Health and Human Services, pursuant to the authority vested in me under section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, do hereby determine that a public health emergency exists and has existed since January 27, 2020, nationwide. (emphasis mine)
Watt said she didn’t know the reason for the backdating but offered the following possibilities:
Possibly Azar/his handlers made the decision on Jan. 27, 2020, but didn’t make the public announcement until Jan. 31, 2020.
Possibly Azar/his handlers were trying to coordinate the date with some of the reporting data about alleged cases in other countries.
Possibly he/his handlers were trying to coordinate the date with Congressional bills.
Possibly Azar/his handlers were trying to coordinate the date with other activities (such as hospital homicide protocols) that would be authorized/exempt from prosecution through the determination and declaration.2
Another possibility — one closely connected to the conditions “needed” for a PHEIC to be declared and endorsed by the U.S.— regards what had occurred on American soil before and on that date.
By 30 January, two U.S. “cases” had already been announced: a man in Snohomish County, Washington (21 January), and a woman in Chicago (23 January). Her husband was said to have tested positive on 30 January, with the couple described as the first instance of person-to-person transmission of 2019-nCoV in the U.S.
But according to the timeline in the associated investigative study, the husband’s positive result came back on 27 January — the date to which the U.S. Public Health Emergency (PHE) was later backdated. While I believe Azar “needed” and waited for the WHO’s PHEIC declaration on 30 January, given the sequence in which within-country transmission events were reported, one could argue the WHO “needed” the U.S. announcement. International spread of disease is, after all, a key criterion for a PHEIC.3
Even setting the WHO aside, and recognizing (as Watt points out) that U.S. law grants the HHS Secretary sweeping authority to declare a public health emergency without needing hard evidence, Azar still “needed” reported cases and human-to-human transmission to (implicitly) justify the declaration. The language of the PHE determination states that a public health emergency exists and has existed since 27 January 2020, as a result of confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV. It wasn’t the mere presence or incidence of a few cases (that is, positive tests), but the claim about transmission that green-lighted the PHE and (in my view) why the effective date was 27 January.
Yet genomic sequencing data published in Nature revealed that the viral genomes of the Chicago couple did not cluster together phylogenetically, which undermines the transmission claim. By “conventional” virological and epidemiological standards, they were not a transmission pair.4 Nor were many of the January 2020 incidents reported in other countries — a point I hope to show and explain further in the future.
Summary
I have contended (e.g., here, here, here ), and continue to maintain, that the foundational lie in early 2020 wasn’t the “discovery” or “existence” of something called 2019-nCoV or SARS-CoV-2, but the claim that “it”was spreading and causing a new disease. That claim was the effective basis for both the actions taken by the WHO and U.S. officials, including Alex Azar. Without it, there would have been no emergency to declare.
No spread, no PHEIC.
Related:
Hockett, J. (2025, March 16). “Stay Home, Save Lives”. Wood House 76.
Hockett, J. (2025, March 17). "15 Days to Slow the Spread". Wood House 76.
Hockett, J., & Engler, J. (2025, March 21). “On dividing a resistance, the existence of viruses, ‘the COVID response’, & spreading-non-deadly threats.” Wood House 76.
Hockett, J. (2025, April 7). “Views on the things called viruses (including SARS‑CoV‑2).” Wood House 76.
Hockett, J., & Engler, J. (2025, April 27). “Was there ever any evidence for human‑to‑human transmission of 2019‑nCoV?” Wood House 76.
Engler, J., Hockett, J. & Neil. M. (2025, June 30) “This Covid Narrative Collapses under the Slightest Scrutiny.” The Conservative Woman.
Watt: “These speculations (of mine) are the result of some keyword searches in my files that got hits in a 3,234-page collection of Fauci emails obtained by FOIA, in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act and in the CARES Act.”
Dates of transmission announcements by country that preceded or coincided with the WHO PHEIC: China (January 20-21), Vietnam (January 23), Germany, Japan, and Taiwan (January 28), United States (January 30).
See Hockett, J. (2022, August 24). “Questioning the first known person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” Wood House 76.