Taiwan accused the World Health Organization of downplaying the spread of the coronavirus from China and released an email sent to the UN agency in December questioning whether COVID-19 could be transmitted from person to person, according to reports.

Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said the email, written in English, was sent to the WHO on Dec. 31 and noted that “news resources today indicate that at least seven atypical pneumonia cases were reported in Wuhan, China.”

“Their health authorities replied to the media that the cases were believed not to be SARS, however the samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment,” he quoted the text of the emails, according to Reuters and Fox News.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was also caused by a previously unknown virus that originated in China.

It killed 774 people worldwide in 2003.

Chen said it should have been apparent to any medical professional that the circumstances described in the email would have required isolation and said the WHO was splitting hairs over the wording.

“If being treated in isolation is not a warning, then what is?” he asked.

Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control said the wording about “atypical pneumonia” made it clear “there was a real possibility of human-to-human transmission.”

But because at the time there were no coronaviruses cases in Taiwan, their health officials couldn’t conclusively determine that kind of transmission took place.

WHO, in a statement to Reuters, said they didn’t receive an email about person-to-person transmission.

China, which refuses to acknowledge Taiwan’s sovereignty, has pressured the WHO not to recognize the country.

Taiwan has declared itself an independent nation for more than 70 years.

The WHO has been criticized for pandering to China in the early days of the outbreak.

And Beijing has been accused of failing to accurately report the number of cases – causing other countries to underplay their response to the outbreak.

As late as Jan. 14, the WHO said “there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the virus.

It didn’t declare the coronavirus as a pandemic until March 11.

There are nearly 2 million cases worldwide, and the death toll has exceeded 120,000.