https://www.aol.com/article/news/20...g-for-who-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/23991230/ The UN Secretary-General said "now is not that time," in a rebuke to President Donald Trump's call to halt funding to the World Health Organization. Trump claims WHO mishandled the coronavirus outbreak and was too sympathetic to China. The United Nations Secretary-General rebuked President Donald Trump after he announced his plans to halt funding for the World Health Organization on Tuesday. In a statement, António Guterres wrote: "It is my belief that the World Health Organization must be supported, as it is absolutely critical to the world's efforts to win the war against COVID-19." WHO is an independent international organization that works with the UN. During Tuesday's White House press briefing, Trump was critical of the organization's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and claimed it enabled China to hide the real extent of the coronavirus outbreak. "With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America's generosity has been put to the best use possible," Trump said during a press conference at the White House's Rose Garden. "The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet, and share information in a timely and transparent fashion." However, despite his criticism of WHO, Trump has been accused of not responding quickly enough to the threat of the virus in the US, and some health care experts said early lockdowns could have saved lives. "As usual, Trump is looking to deflect blame for his own failures. After he wasted weeks calling COVID-19 as harmless as the flu. International cooperation on public health has never been more critical. Freezing funding for the World Health Organization will only make it worse," Rep. Adam Schiff said in a tweet. According to Reuters, the US contributes about 15% of the WHO budget, approximately $400 million. The organization has requested $1 billion to help fund initiatives to deal with the pandemic. "As it is not that time, it is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus," Guterres wrote in his statement. "As I have said before, now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences. " Trump has previously threatened to cut the WHO funding earlier this month as well after he accused them of being sympathetic to China. WHO receives $40 million from China. At a press conference, Trump became defensive after a reporter asked him how he could criticize WHO for praising China's transparency when he did the same thing in a late-January tweet. "I don't talk about China's transparency," Trump replied. "If I'm so good to China, how come I'm the one that closed our borders against China?" Guterres wrote that they'll be plenty of time after the pandemic subsides to learn and understand how it spread and managed to be destructive: "The lessons learned will be essential to effectively address similar challenges, as they may arise in the future. But now is not that time."
WHO, thanks for nothing. China (destroyer of evidence) fumbled a bio weapon (could be). It got loose, many people are dying and please wash your hands.
I support democrats up and down the ticket for a few cycles now but I absolutely agree with pulling funding from the WHO. I know Trump is always looking to blame anyone else for his failures but it is so important to understand that WHO should have played a key role in advising the world on Covid and they failed at it. They instead slow rolled the dangers, allowed China to control the narrative and scientistific reporting and totally failed at issuing alerts. Many on the right will say see it’s the WHO’s fault we have an uncontrolled pandemic raging in our country, no. It’s still Trump that ignored our internal scientists and doctors and even his own advisers and totally failed to prepare the nation. But that’s totally different from the WHO’s failure. I’m thinking we need to move to something like a NATO Health advisement commission or something. Through something like this we can use our economic leverage and security assurances to gain compliance for basic health issues and guidance.
WHO is mainly an asset for impoverished countries to help with health issues or continent wide issues affecting poor parts of Africa, Asia or Latin America just like the UN does with international issues. Most developed countries have their own type of CDC or health organizations that work much better than WHO for their own issues. WHO is not to blame for the pandemic llike many want to, but they did not do their job so really no need to keep funding them. U.S. is served better sending CDC officials into a hot zone than waiting for WHO to provide a report. Let WHO serve those who have no real medical/health systems to battle global health issues and we handle our shit ourselves.
I think a world response team is needed, which I had expected WHO to cover. Problem was thinking the 2nd biggest donor would not exert political influence. Here's where this whole "hard ball" negotiation Trump claims to be an expert in should've come in. WHO is not without fault, but let's be honest, Trump's being a pussy and passing the blame per usual.
I would say really unprofessional in how they handled the issue with one of their biggest clients....medical professionals claiming no human to human transmission when people were sick with it since december. BVasically if I was the client I would fire them but since China was served by WHO's negligence, USA is firing them.
They also lined up with China to trash the Americans for closing flights from China when they knew damn well that they had human to human transmissions. China had banned flights from Wuhan to the rest of China at the same time that it was trashing Trump for being a xenophobe for banning flights to the U.S. Not pretty. Anyway, I am somewhat of a moderate on the issue of the WHO. I am hell bent on seeing those functions placed into receivership or stewardship by a more responsible body- but that definitely is not the same as saying that they should be eliminated- although some of it should be and some of it should be re-directed to include threats to countries beyond third world countries. Dr. Egypt there definitely needs to go. He is not exactly the "fresh face" that is needed at this time. Be interesting to see how he deals with the fact that the Americans want him to testify before the Senate.
i agree, it can serve a real purpose for global health issues ( improving child care in Africa, reducing obesity in poor countries with no nutritional standards etc..) But let them get funding from other stooges.