By Jonathan Stempel and Jan Wolfe
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Residents of a suburban New York City county that was one of the earliest U.S. hot spots for the coronavirus sued the World Health Organization on Monday, accusing it of gross negligence in covering up and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a proposed class action, three residents of Westchester County accused the WHO of failing to timely declare a pandemic, monitor China’s response to the original outbreak, provide treatment guidelines, advise members on how to respond including through travel restrictions, and coordinate a global response.
They also accused the WHO of conspiring with China’s government, which was not named as a defendant, to cover up COVID-19’s severity.
The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit by Richard Kling and Steve Rotker, both of New Rochelle, and Gennaro Purchia, of Scarsdale, was filed in the federal court in White Plains, New York.
It seeks unspecified damages for what they called WHO’s “incalculable” harm to the roughly 756,000 adult residents in Westchester County who would make up the class.
Westchester is north of New York City, and last year had about 967,506 people, of whom roughly 78% were adults, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
New Rochelle became a hot spot after a lawyer who attended the Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 2, the first person in the community to test positive.
Through April 18, a total of 242,786 people in New York had tested positive for the coronavirus, including 23,803 in Westchester, according to the state’s health department.
The number of total hospitalizations for COVID-19 and the daily death toll have fallen in recent days, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.
The case is Kling et al v World Health Organization, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 20-03124.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Jan Wolfe in Washington; editing by Grant McCool)
