Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Wednesday April 15 2020, @08:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-sordid-art-of-deflection dept.

BBC: Coronavirus: US to halt funding to WHO, says Trump

US President Donald Trump has said he is going to halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) because it has "failed in its basic duty" in its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

[...] Mr Trump has been under fire for his own handling of the pandemic.

He has sought to deflect persistent criticism that he acted too slowly to stop the virus's spread by pointing to his decision in late January to place restrictions on travel from China.

[...] The US is the global health body's largest single funder and gave it more than $400m in 2019.

A decision on whether the US resumes funding will be made after the review, which Mr Trump said would last 60 to 90 days.

[...] China gave about $86m in 2018-19; UK gives most of any country apart from the US

[...] The organisation launched an appeal in March for $675m to help fight the pandemic and is reported to be planning a fresh appeal for at least $1bn.

Reuters: Trump halts World Health Organization funding amid coronavirus pandemic

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would halt funding to the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic while his administration reviews its response to the global crisis.

Trump told a White House news conference the WHO had “failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable.” He said the group had promoted China’s “disinformation” about the virus that likely led to a wider outbreak of the virus than otherwise would have occurred.

[...] The hold on funding was expected. Trump has been increasingly critical of the organization as the global health crisis has continued, and he has reacted angrily to criticism of his administration’s response.

[...] U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday it was “not the time” to reduce resources for the body.

“Now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences,” he said.

American Medical Association President Dr. Patrice Harris called it “a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier” and urged Trump to reconsider.

[...] The Republican president recently accused the WHO of being too lenient with China in the earliest days of the crisis, despite having himself praised China in January for its response and transparency.

Trump has made frequent use of scapegoats during his short political career. He often lashes out at the media, Democrats, or others when he feels attacked or under pressure.

The Guardian: Trump turns against WHO to mask his own stark failings on Covid-19 crisis

Donald Trump’s declared suspension of funding of the World Health Organisation in the midst of a pandemic is confirmation – if any were needed – that he is in search of scapegoats for his administration’s much delayed and chaotic response to the crisis.

The US is the WHO’s biggest donor, with funding over $400m a year in both assessed contributions (membership fees) and donations – though it is actually $200m in arrears. [pdf]

Theoretically the White House cannot block funding of international institutions mandated by Congress. But the administration has found ways around such constitutional hurdles on other issues – by simply failing to disburse funds or apply sanctions, for example.

The funding could be formally rescinded, but that would require Senate approval, or “reprogrammed” by being diverted to another purpose that the White House could argue is consistent with the will of Congress.

[...] The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had to fly to Beijing to meet Xi Jinping on 29 January to negotiate entry and information sharing. A WHO team was allowed to visit Wuhan on 22 February. Tedros has been criticised for his flattery of Xi and the Chinese response, in the face of Beijing’s obstructionism and cover-up attempts. His defenders said that such diplomacy was the price for entry.

Trump did more than his own fair share of Xi flattery. On 24 January, the president tweeted “China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus … The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.”

The claim that the delay in the WHO acquiring samples crippled the international response is also false. Chinese scientists publicly released the genetic sequence of Covid-19 on 11 January.

[...] By early February the WHO was in a position to distribute a Covid-19 test worldwide, but the US government opted not to have it fast-tracked through approval. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instead produced its own test at about the same time, but it was flawed and had to be recalled. US testing would be set back more than six weeks compared to the rest of the world.

While virtually no testing was under way in the US throughout February, Trump assumed the consequently low number of confirmed US cases meant that his country had somehow escaped. “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,” he boasted on 24 February, nearly a month after the WHO declaration of emergency. “We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health [Organisation] have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:12PM (7 children)

    by Barenflimski (6836) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:12PM (#983221)

    I'm not sure what to make of all of this rhetoric. It feels like people are anxious and antsy and have nothing better to do than point fingers.

    This is how I see it. Without the WHO or any other agency paying any attention to the planet then we have zero visibility and zero coordination. Without any of these agencies, then the planet moves on, people die as we get various diseases. Darwinism.

    We put humans in the mix. We make the WHO. No human is perfect. No system is perfect. People can dial the knobs of any institution with the right controls over the inputs. We shift the entire idea of "mother earth or God" just creates this stuff because its planet earth, to "It must be someone's fault." If there are humans in the mix, then sure, we'll find someone to pin it on.

    By de-funding the WHO, we make an organization that some say did a bad job, worse. Not sure how that makes sense. For the folks playing these types of games, doesn't that actually get rid of one of the boogymen these guys can scapegoat? For the rest of us that don't care for the games, is it not important to have organizations like the WHO to help with some of these things? They certainly help with Ebola, Malaria, Dengue fever and all sorts of other diseases that affect billions of people. Is that not worthwhile? Do these folks just want to go it alone? If so, how do they get better data than the WHO had?

    Personally the whole scapegoat thing seems like a farce. It very well may have been a grad student that shoveled some bat poop into a bag that was the first person to get this. I don't think that this is biological warfare and I don't blame the grad student or the Chinese government anymore than I blame the airlines and in my case the U.S. government that didn't stop flights from that part of the world. Wasn't this lab folks are talking about partly funded by the U.S.? Weren't their staff trained by people from Texas? I mean if we want to point fingers, then doesn't that make the United States partly to blame?

    Last I checked we all came from this planet. Last I checked there are lots of viruses that can kill us. Last I checked viruses still mutate. Last I checked we are all humans and death is a certainty.

    Seems to me we should be focusing on how best to move forward. Not sure that retreating into our shell makes sense.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:16PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:16PM (#983224) Journal

    The problem with WHO is that it is subject to control and capture and can thus be moved easily in a direction defeating its purpose, as has happened here.

    What the world needs is some that is not multi-national -- it needs something that is NON-national -- a wikileaks for health or some such.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:20PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:20PM (#983228) Journal

    Trump is just desperately trying to deflect from his own incompetence.

    So, business as usual...

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:39PM (2 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @09:39PM (#983243)

    I'm not sure how the WHO is very helpful at all here. You seem to thing that things will be better without them. To test this, let's examine one country that didn't have *any* WHO help: Taiwan. WHO won't work with them because it pisses off their masters in the Chinese Communist Party. How has Covid-19 affected Taiwan? Barely at all: they handled it better than *anyone*. They didn't even close schools. Because WHO proved to be worse than useless, Taiwan did their own research and came up with their own recommendations for how to handle things, and it turned out to be better than everything than everyone else did.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @10:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @10:06PM (#983259)

      Reference for Taiwan? I looked at the Johns Hopkins map https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html [jhu.edu] and it shows Taiwan somewhere in the middle of the list of confirmed cases, here's a cutting from the list:

      ...
      435 Djibouti
      419 Honduras
      404 Guinea
      401 Jordan
      399 Malta
      397 Bolivia
      395 Taiwan*
      387 Kosovo
      373 Nigeria
      372 San Marino
      324 Mauritius
      314 Senegal
      308 West Bank and Gaza
      ...

      This is hardly over yet, it might be too early to see how Taiwan does in the longer term but it does look pretty good for being so close to China.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @10:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @10:11PM (#983264)

      Sweden and Byelorussia have also avoided the fascist route and kept their countries working. Sweden in particular is approaching peak curve right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Sweden [wikipedia.org]

      They have defied Interested Parties that have called on them to destroy their nations' economies, be it only for showing the captives that there is no alternative to their dictate.

      What kind of a "quarantine" is it that imprisons healthy people?

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 15 2020, @10:49PM

    by Bot (3902) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @10:49PM (#983291) Journal

    > This is how I see it. Without the WHO or any other agency paying any attention to the planet then we have zero visibility and zero coordination.

    Somehow, that worked well for millennia.

    Enter the coordinated society, est. 1789, and the planet is over. Coincidence?

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Thursday April 16 2020, @01:58AM

    by zion-fueled (8646) on Thursday April 16 2020, @01:58AM (#983368)

    Except we all knew, us dumb-asses on the internet.

    It's even traced back to the likely origin point and person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU [youtube.com]

    Besides the level 4, there is a BSL2 across the street. Accident gives motive for coverup.

    Virus news out of Wuhan came while WHO was claiming everything was fine. Research did too and all was better than anything the WHO provided. It sure would have been nice to have a supportive world organization like you say but we are flying right now without one all the same.