“More than a dozen United States experts were working at the World Health Organization and feeding the Trump administration information last December as the coronavirus spread through China, according to reporting by the Washington Post.”
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“A top official from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was part of the committee that advised the WHO on whether to declare a global public health emergency in late January. Two US scientists were part of the WHO’s information gathering mission to China in mid-February. A CDC official has compiled daily reports of outbreaks in consultation with WHO counterparts and passed along information to higher-ups in the organization through daily briefing calls. And upcoming WHO plans and announcements were reportedly shared days in advance with top US officials like Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
The WHO has been criticized for its handling of the pandemic — including whether the organization waited too long to declare a global emergency and if it has been too liberal in its praise for China’s response — but the Post’s reporting indicates that lack of early communication of the threat to the US was likely not one of its missteps.
Trump claims otherwise, telling reporters last Tuesday, “The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain … and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.””
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“Trump’s threat to stop sending the millions of dollars the country sends annually to the WHO would be a devastating blow to the organization, which is helping to coordinate the global response to Covid-19. The US is the organization’s single largest funder, providing 22 percent of all member state assessed contributions and often hundreds of millions more in voluntary contributions.
It’s not clear whether he can stop the $116 million that’s been appropriated to the agency by Congress, but it seems he may be allowed to reroute the funding to other organizations or withhold it until next year.”