After talks with Ghebreyesus in Geneva, Péter Szijjártó praised the WHO chief as “a leader who has retained WHO as a politics-free, professional organisation, which came to be crucial in defeating coronavirus”.

Szijjártó and Ghebreyesus agreed that “protecting the health of people has nothing to do with geopolitics … viruses will not observe borders, political approaches, or geopolitical conflicts … saving health requires a united, global approach.” “In health there is no room for an East-West dispute,” Szijjártó said.

Concerning a recent rise in coronavirus cases, Szijjártó quoted Ghebreyesus as saying: “The world is incomparably more prepared now than it was 3 or 4 years ago … we have the necessary vaccines, the natural immunity that has developed since then and broad knowledge about the virus itself.”

“Nobody wants to see the lockdowns and quarantines again, and luckily it seems that they won’t be necessary,” Szijjártó added.