Trump has just announced that he is ordering the US to halt funding to the World Health Organization in response to their handling of the coronavirus pandemic:
President Trump explains why he is halting funding to the @WHO:
-They failed to obtain & share accurate information
-Failed to investigate credible reports of human-to-human transmission and parroted CCP Propaganda instead
-They were silent on the disappearance of Whistleblowers pic.twitter.com/MToSDQbcRn— Benny (@bennyjohnson) April 14, 2020
Here’s more from Fox News:
President Trump announced at the White House coronavirus press briefing on Tuesday that the United States will immediately halt all funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), saying it had put “political correctness over lifesaving measures.”
Trump declared that the United States “will be forced” to pursue other options as it reviews why the WHO had caused “so much death” by “severely mismanaging and covering up” the coronavirus’ spread.
“We have deep concerns over whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible,” Trump said, accusing the WHO of failing to adequately keep the international community apprised of the threat of the coronavirus.
“The WHO failed in this duty, and must be held accountable,” Trump said. He added that the WHO had ignored “credible information” in December 2019 that the virus could be transmitted from human to human.
On January 4, in a statement first flagged by The National Review, the head University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Infection warned that “the city should implement the strictest possible monitoring system for a mystery new viral pneumonia that has infected dozens of people on the mainland, as it is highly possible that the illness is spreading from human to human.”
The Chinese government also began suppressing news about the virus. Nevertheless, on January 8, the WHO declared: “Preliminary identification of a novel virus in a short period of time is a notable achievement and demonstrates China’s increased capacity to manage new outbreaks.”
Again on January 14, the WHO echoed Chinese government statements: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China.”
By January 19, the WHO had changed its tune. “Not enough is known to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, the clinical features of the disease, the extent to which it has spread, or its source, which remains unknown.”
Several media organizations had also uncritically cited WHO’s assurances about the coronavirus.
While he’ll be criticized severely for this, I’m glad Trump is taking a stand and forcing consequences on an organization that should have been far more skeptical of the claims from the Chinese government than they were. Taiwan tried to warn them and they ignored it.