On Wednesday, Bill Gates responded to the United States announcement that they were halting funding for the World Health Organization, calling it dangerous.
“ Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever (sic),” Gates tweeted. Incidentally, the US funds around $400 million a year to WHO.
Earlier in the morning, the White House announced that the United States was halting funding of the WHO while a review was being conducted to assess WHO’s role in managing the coronavirus outbreak.
Gates is partially right in his tweet. It’s a dangerous time to cut off funding to the WHO, but saying that the world needs them now more than ever is questionable, given that WHO, under the leadership of Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, has taken many controversial decisions while managing the spread of the outbreak. Ghebreyesus close proximity with the Xi Jinping government in China has also raised eyebrows amongst the global community, with many saying that WHO should have declared a pandemic in January rather than in March.
But then, the US’s handling of the pandemic has been equally questionable.
The US President isn’t wrong about the WHO, but his handling of the situation can’t be written home about either.
Where WHO messed up
His anger against the WHO can be summed up in this Article published in The Atlantic. Quoting a Berkley research scientist, Xiao Oiang, the report said that the WHO was echoing all of China’s messages. “Particularly at the beginning, it was shocking when I again and again saw WHO’s [director-general], when he spoke to the press … almost directly quoting what I read on the Chinese government’s statements,” Oiang told the magazine.
The WHO was also accused of delaying its response to the COVID-19 virus by declaring a pandemic – a move many global leaders have said was political.
In another criticism of the organisation and Ghebreyesus, Georgetown University professor Lawrence Gostin, “Tredos’ strategy on China while tackling the COVID-19 pandemic was more politically-oriented rather than a critical approach.”
China, too, has played a wonderful game of give and take with Tredos. When the WHO Director-General accused the Taiwanese government of making racial slurs against him, a series of investigations were conducted only to reveal that the Taiwan government did not make any claims, but that a series of articles from mainland China were apologising to him on Taiwan’s behalf in an ‘apparent attempt to create a false impression that Taiwan had insulted him in the first place.’
Where US messed up
If an ABC investigative report is to believed, then the US government was informed by the National Centre for Medical Intelligence that a pandemic could break out as early as in November. However, this was ignored. Then on January 8, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory that ‘it was closely monitoring the situation.’
A fortnight later, President Trump made his first comments about the coronavirus after someone tested positive. He said that the US ‘had it totally under control. It’s going to be just fine.’
On January 27, according to a Washington Post report, White House aide Jeff Grogan warned that the administration needed to take the coronavirus breakout seriously, warning that the situation could turn into a pandemic. However, President Trump still did not pay heed, saying that there were only 5 positive cases in the United States on January 31. He expressed confidence even on February 19 that by the time April comes, the virus would get affected by the heat. Until then, there has been no report published on food, weather or other factors affecting the virus’s spread. On February 26, the US President lashed out at ‘fake news’ for scaring people about the coronavirus, announcing a day later that it would ‘like a miracle disappear’.
A day after the WHO declared the coronavirus a global pandemic on March 11, Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tells the United States Congress that not enough tests are being conducted, stating that it was a failing. However, President Trump retorted saying that, “If you go to the right agency, you will be tested.” On March 13, President Trump said he did not take responsibility for the spread of the disease. And on April 8, he blamed the WHO for the spread of the pandemic.
Currently, the US has 6.09 lakh cases of coronavirus in the country, and the number is likely to go up. People who live in the states have told us that there isn’t a total lockdown, and that all supermarkets, medical stores and other essential service providers are still functioning. People are still going to work, but can work from home voluntarily if they want.
It’s difficult to say when the curve will get flattened, but one thing’s for certain: The governments of China and USA, along with the poor management by the WHO ensured that it rose in the first place. And if Trump wanted to cut off funding, he could have waited for the curve to flatten some more before pulling the plug.
