The US President Donald Trump announced in his Coronavirus briefing on Tuesday that he is going to halt funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO), while a review will be conducted to assess WHO’s role in “mismanaging” and “covering up” the Coronavirus outbreak.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1250194670031974400
The World Health Organisation (WHO), which has played a key role in the eradication of several diseases such as smallpox and polio, depends on contributions from member states and outside donors to carry out its functions. Halting United States’ aid to the WHO can possibly weaken the global fight against the Coronavirus pandemic, because the US is the biggest contributor to the organisation.
Trump has accused the WHO of “mismanaging” the coronavirus outbreak and supposedly being ‘soft’ on China.
American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per year to the WHO every year, the US president said, pointing out that China contributes approximately $40 million a year, “or even less”.
“I am directing my administration to halt funding while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” Trump said during a media briefing at the White House.
“Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death, very little death, and certainly very little death, by comparison,” the US President said.
“This would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide economic damage. Instead, the WHO willingly took China’s assurances to face value and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the Chinese government even praising China for its so-called transparency, I don’t think so,” he added.
President Trump maintained contradictory views on China as the COVID-19 pandemic grew globally. He called it a “Chinese virus” in the initial days when COVID-19 broke out and stopped calling it the “Chinese virus” eventually.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1240243188708839424
Though now blaming China for lack of transparency, Trump had praised China for its transparency and efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1220818115354923009
The United Nations (UN) chief António Guterres said on Tuesday in a statement of action, “Now is a time for unity in the global battle to push the COVID-19 pandemic into reverse, not a time to cut the resources of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is spearheading and coordinating the global body’s efforts.”