Trump withdrawing WHO funding, I can kind of see his point.....

[MrsTumbletap]

So Trump has announced that he is withdrawing the 400-500 million dollars America gives to the WHO after the way they have dealt with the outbreak and how they didn't investigate China's statements about it not being spread person to person.

Now I am not a Trump fan, I think the man is intolerable, but........I can see his point here. The WHO have not handled this well, they didn't investigate how it spread, they said international travel was fine. Which has now affected the whole world.

If every country used their WHO donations and poured it in to their health services at this urgent time, it would make more sense wouldn't it?

What are the WHO actually doing right now? Countries are dealing with it on their own, why do we need a collective body of people to make decisions that need billions? Google isn't showing an answer, the WHO website doesn't show what they are doing right now.

Wasn’t it the WHO saying we were wrong in our strategy (but naming no names) that made us change course...?

I can’t remember the specific details as it feels like it was 100 years ago, but I know we had a press conference that said we were going to do something (herd immunity?) and the next day the WHO said something like no countries should consider (herd immunity) as it’s a terrible idea. The next day we changed our plan.

So the WHO are doing a good job, even if they have made some mistakes... like everyone else has.

Did China and the WHO ever say it didn’t spread person to person? I thought we always knew that?

@Bluntness100 agree it does feel knee jerk and I suspect he is waiting for a resignation too.

I fail to understand how anyone can agree with Trump about anything to be honest.

In fact it terrifies me that he is still in power and so many people in the US seem to love him and believe the crazed buffoon.

Terrifying. He might even get re-elected

Trump is a two faced cockwomble. He cant even keep up with his own lies and bullshit. The White house update on the 13th april was simply shocking ..... he not only made the reporters watch a home made propganda video but then claimed that he, as the president has total authroity over the united states ( LIES). And then a reporter corrected him and said he was innacurate. She then asked "what do you have to say to the families of those that have died of Covid19?".....and he replies "That you are a terrible reporter".

I've attached a tweet that I saved. he really doesn't know his arse from his elbow.

There are other ways for donors to check the WHO or other orgs' system is working or carry out enquiries. Removing funding is a political gesture, not to help the health of world citizens.

Trump is answerable to the American electorate whose taxes go towards funding the WHO and no one else. Under the leadership of Tedros the WHO have unashamedly pandered to Chinese interests, so much so that if they had listened to Taiwan in December 1000s of deaths would have been prevented. Hopefully Trump withdrawing funding leads to the elimination of partisan pandering to special interests.

The WHO Ignores Taiwan. The World Pays the Price. Taiwan was more prepared for the coronavirus than any other country, but the WHO puts politics first
www.thenation.com/article/world/taiwan-who-coronavirus-china/

I fail to understand how anyone can agree with Trump about anything to be honest

I agree he’s an arse, and I don’t agree with the withdrawing of funds from the who, as said, I think it’s a form of financial blackmail. He’s making a point, and will reinstate funding if he gets what he wants, an Apology or a resignation.

Occasionally though he says something I agree with. For example he was the one who said we can’t let the cure be worse than the disease. Fundamentally this is something I agree with. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Attacking the WHO sounds like the same sort of ill-informed anti intellectual thinking that gave us brexit. Great scapegoats though.

Trump doesnt ever have valid points he uses what he has to deflect and confuse, this is clearly working if some people see his point, hes the one who didnt do anything in February to try and stop spread but he is now blaming the WHO

I think WHO are in an impossible position when it comes to Taiwan.

They can't just recognise Taiwan as an independent state because it's not their role to do so and because it could trigger WW3.

This was last June:

www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/02/china-says-war-with-us-would-be-a-disaster-as-tensions-mount

This was yesterday:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8215511/China-takes-advantage-USS-Roosevelt-crippled-coronavirus-send-jets-close-Taiwan.html

WHO doesn't have any troops to send if it all kicks off.

For example he was the one who said we can’t let the cure be worse than the disease.

WHO have been consistently saying this.

WHO did also badger all countries to stop messing about and lockdown,

The number of millions the USA gets hosed for (WHO, NATO) boggles my mind

You and me both, and IME it's a common American view to be sick of being insulted by folk with one hand clenched into a furious fist and the other held out for money

I understand the possible problems with what Trump's announced and appreciate he may have mixed motives, but I still find it hard to blame him for this one

I think lots of people have made errors with this - Chinese Government, WHO, Trump, Boris and Macron for example. However now is not the time for blame game. Trump withdrawing funding is just political grandstanding.

I’m rather unusually with Trump on this. China can chip in a bit more and pick up the slack.

IME it's a common American view to be sick of being insulted by folk with one hand clenched into a furious fist and the other held out for money

Do you mean WHO? I don't think I've seen them insult the US or clench a furious fist at them, or any other country In fact I've been quite astonished at how unfailingly polite they have been about the US and Trump, despite his shenannigans.

Do you have some examples of what you mean?

I think hes successfully reaching his goal of turning the attention onto the WHO and not his failings on how his lack of response and downplaying the coronavirus has effected the outcome, if people are talking about this and foucsed on the WHO they r not focused on him, very dangerous man

@RandomlyChosenName The WHO backed up the Chinese governments line stating there was 'no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission'.

They of course then changed their statement on this but believed the Chinese initially.

Jein. (lovely German word that is half yes, half no)
Is it a distract-divert technique from his own inaction in February? Hell, yes but Should the US be paying so much more in than China? It doesn't seem very equitable.
That does not mean he just stops funding now though, kneejerk grandstanding.

The WHO is completely corrupt and not fit for purpose. Needs overhauling

The WHO backed up the Chinese governments line stating there was 'no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission'.

They said there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission because they had not seen any clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. They can't make China give them all their data and they won't say they have evidence for something when they don't.

Meanwhile on 10-11 January they put up detailed technical guidance for all countries, based on the assumption that human-to-human transmission via droplets and close contact was likely, because that's how respiratory pathogens usually spread.

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead on the virus, addressed this in the last press briefing:

With regard to the human-to-human transmission question, right from the start, from the first notification that we received on 31st December, given that this was a cluster of pneumonia - I'm a MERS specialist so my background is in coronaviruses and influenza so I immediately thought, given that it's a respiratory pathogen, that of course there may be human-to-human transmission.

So initially when we started to put together our technical guidance for our member states we put guidance that focused on how this virus could be transmitted and what we focused on was droplet and contact transmission, which is how respiratory pathogens are spread. Also within our infection prevention and control guidance we put out a special provision for healthcare workers who are focused on conducting aerosol-generating procedures in which we put in place recommendations for airborne transmission. That guidance is still in effect.

The guidance that we put up was on 10th and 11th of January because there were five or six technical guidance materials that were put up on the web which were open to everyone. We also shared this guidance package which included surveillance guidance on how to find cases, laboratory guidance on how to detect cases, infection prevention and control, how to prevent infections, particularly in healthcare settings because, given our past experience with MERS and with SARS, we immediately thought that you could have transmission. in healthcare facilities, you could have amplification events in healthcare facilities and potential superspreading events.

(if this doesn't start at the right time, go to 21:52)

How many failures is enough to question the effectiveness of the WHO? Its culture of failure and representing special interests is endemic, ask any victims of the 2015 Ebola outbreak. Trump may not be the best messenger but He said something that needed to be said. In 2015 many others were saying the same thing.
Experts criticise WHO delay in sounding alarm over Ebola outbreak. Report suggests World Health Organisation should lose its role in declaring disease outbreaks to be international emergency
amp.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/22/experts-criticise-world-health-organisation-who-delay-ebola-outbreak
Also when the whole world is looking at you don't do things like this.... m.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM

@Fallfallfall You are absolutely correct. Americans are sick and tired of giving so much money to the world. We are also tired of giving American lives for other countries too. Especially the WHO. Maybe just maybe if we didn't give the WHO 17 billion a year our country could have Universal Healthcare. Think about that 17 billion dollars to the WHO and 44 million people including children with no healthcare. Hasn't seen the doctor in years. Only medical care they get is sitting in Emergency Rooms for hours just to get a prescription only to realise that the nedicarion is more than your rent/ mortgage and can't afford it anyway

In fact it terrifies me that he is still in power and so many people in the US seem to love him and believe the crazed buffoon

Yes - same here - the power he has is terrifying Currently watching him waffle on and on and on on the press conference. Hinting at conspiracies from WHO/China. STILL blaming WHO and completely unapologetic about stopping the funding even though this will have an awful effect on the poorer countries.

What I don't get - countries who handled it according to WHO guidance (ie South Korea, Hong Kong) got the original info from WHO but still managed to contain the virus, and it hit them sooner too. He also did bugger all even after he was told and was calling it a 'hoax', so even if China/ the WHO had covered it up for a few days, his point is moot. In fact, one of the reasons WHO upgraded it to a pandemic was that certain places were not taking it seriously and preparing as they should, the US being one of these. And back in January, they said they had no concrete evidence of human to human transmission because at that time, they didn't. However, when that changed, they announced this and asked for countries to prepare but some (us and US) weren't listening.

It's depressing hearing people just parrot Trump's claims without checking the facts, and not seeing through what he is doing - shamelessly trying to deflect the blame because HE has fucked up. As a PP said, without WHO as a mediator we'd have probably got NO info from China until it was way too late.

@Leaannb - We are also tired of giving American lives for other countries too

What do you mean? And where did you get 17 billion from?

Maybe just maybe if we didn't give the WHO 17 billion a year our country could have Universal Healthcare

No chance of that whilst that orange twat of a man is in power. They could do that now if they wished, but don't want to.