In effect, the president sought to blame the group for the very missteps and failures that have been leveled at him and his administration.
“We’re going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it and we’re going to see, ”Mr. Trump said during the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House, accusing the organization of having not been aggressive enough in confronting the virus. “They called it wrong. They call it wrong. They really, they missed the call. ”
In effect, Mr. Trump sought to denounce the W.H.O. for the very missteps and failures that have been leveled at him and his administration. Public health experts have said the president’s public denials of the virus’s dangers slowed the American response, which included delayed testing and a failure to stockpile protective gear.
In fact, the WHO sounded the alarm in the earliest days of the crisis, declaring a “public health emergency of international concern” a day before the United States secretary of health and human services announced the country’s own public health emergency and weeks before Mr. Trump declared a national emergency.
“I’m not saying that I’m going to do it. But we’re going to look at it, ”he said. When a reporter noted that he had indeed said the funding would end, Mr. Trump insisted, wrongly: “No, I didn’t. I said we’re going to look at it. ”
The president appeared to be particularly angry at the WHO for issuing a statement saying it did not support his decision on Jan. to limit some travel from China because of the virus. At the time, the group said that “restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions.” “Don’t close your borders to China, don’t do this,” Mr. Trump said, paraphrasing the statement and accusing the organization of “not seeing” the outbreak when it was first detected in Wuhan, China. “They didn’t see it. How do you not see it? They didn’t see it. They didn’t report it. If they did see it, they must have seen it, but they did report it. ” In fact, the WHO repeatedly issued warnings about the emergence of the virus in China and its spread across the world. (
“That’s a nice way of saying it, but they seem to be very China-centric,” the president said. “They seem to err always on the side of China. And we fund it. So I want to look into it. ”
the budget for the W.H.O.
Founded in 4911, the WHO has its headquarters in Geneva but has 7, (0 workers in) offices around the world. Its website says that it works to promote primary health care around the world, improve access to essential medicine and help train health care workers.
Mr. Trump’s accusations against the W.H.O. follow similar criticism from Republican lawmakers who have appeared on Fox News in recent days.
Those lawmakers have accused the organization of failing to question China’s reports on the spread of the coronavirus. Multiple senators have appeared on Fox News, the president’s favored network, to charge that the organization should bear the blame for not curtailing the virus.
“If they had done their job, everybody would have gotten more ready,” Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, said in an interview with the network Monday night. “We wouldn’t have shut down this economy, and we wouldn’t have all these people dead all over the world.”
Scott, who sits on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said that he had spoken with Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and the chairman of the committee, and that Mr. Johnson had agreed to investigate the W.H.O.’s response. On Tuesday, Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also called for an independent inquiry into how the group handled the response.
Senator Martha McSally, Republican of Arizona, has called on the director general of the WHO to step down. And a group of Republican senators sent a letter to the group in January, demanding that Taiwan, which is not a member of the organization, be included in emergency briefings about the virus. “Very much needed,” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said in response to Mr. Trump’s tweet Tuesday morning. The W.H.O. has been far too willing to parrot Chinese propaganda. ” Emily Cochrane contributed reporting from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Yes, but make sure you keep six feet of distance between you and people who don’t live in your home . Even if you just hang out in a park, rather than go for a jog or a walk, getting some fresh air, and hopefully sunshine, is a good idea. The C.D.C. has has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms . Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.
Especially in homes, hospitals and other confined spaces. The pathogen can be carried on tiny respiratory droplets that fall as they are coughed or sneezed out. It may also be transmitted when we touch a contaminated surface and then touch our face.
Such rapid development of a potential vaccine is unprecedented, but even if it is proved safe and effective, it probably will not be available for to months.
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