[wazokazi]

Could this not have waited a few months? In the middle of an pandemic, to cut off funding to the only organization that is coordinating the global response is just crazy. The pettiness of this administration seems to know no bounds. Even if we accept that WHO screwed up in their early response and yeah they could be critical of China, cutting funding is wildly disproportionate reaction.

China will offcourse make up the difference, and appropriately gain more influence. As it rightly should.

[0xy]

Why do you think that the WHO bears no responsibility for spreading misinformation? Often times they simply repeat CCP propaganda verbatim, arguably worsening the crisis. Then there's the flagrant lies about masks, calling travel bans ineffective then scrambling to change tone, delaying declarations of status, etc etc.

https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152

The WHO also isn't really doing anything on the ground (besides finger waving countries into giving them billions of dollars).

Their legacy is delay, confusion, misinformation, outright lies and incompetence.

[simonh]

The WHO team was instrumental in getting the Chinese to report accurate infection rates, within 2 days of them arriving in country the reporting system was completely overhauled and they started reporting clinically diagnosed cases as well as positive tests at a time when testing capacity was minimal. This was a crucial contribution in illuminating the scale of the outbreak early on. Before that they, like everyone else, was almost entirely dependent on information from the Chinese government.

The WHO had developed a test kit, was distributing it and was helping countries ramp up production at a time when the US was making a complete mess of testing. Many third world countries are heavily dependent on WHO expertise and support. This move is a knife in their backs.

Honestly, who has the best track record of tackling this issue and taking it seriously. The WHO, or a man who was calling it a hoax 6 weeks after the WHO had alerted of possible international transmission?

[trobertson]

> Honestly, who has the best track record of tackling this issue and taking it seriously.

Taiwan, who the WHO regularly denies exists.

South Korea, whose success and strategies have been ignored.

This crisis has shown us the true face of the WHO: a primarily political organization with occasional work in medicine.

[simonh]

>South Korea, whose success and strategies have been ignored.

The WHO published summaries and support for the South Korean approach to the virus on 21 January, particularly highlighting their approach to testing and contact tracing and recommending similar approaches elsewhere. The WHO then started providing technical expertise to help countries set up testing and contact tracing systems, especially in poorer countries without that knowhow.

What was Trump doing, was he setting up a G20 summits to co-ordinate the global response like George Bush did during the financial crisis in 2008? Taking a role of global leadership? Nope, more than 5 weeks later while the WHO was leading efforts to track and contain the virus, Trump was still calling the whole thing a hoax at a mass rally in the US.

Trump can throw blame wherever he likes, you can pick nits in the activities of organisations that have been at the forefront of actually tackling this crisis. Whatever. But de-funding the WHO right now is a disgusting and reprehensible attack on the world's ability to tackle this crisis, from a country that was instrumental is setting up and running the WHO and it's predecessors for more than 100 years.

[ksk]

>The WHO also isn't really doing anything on the ground

I'm curious, how are you so certain about this?

[rasengan]

WHO is funded by Bill Gates [1].

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most-powerful...

[nikofeyn]

it is coming from an administration that lies with nearly every word, and they aren't even constructed lies. they are lies equivalent to what you make up on the spot when you forget your proverbial homework. it really isn't surprising. this administration commits treason on a daily basis, as they repeatedly throw the entire country under the bus for their own gain. it is truly sickening.

[henearkr]

It is also throwing the entire planet under the bus... Denial of the global warming emergency should be accountable before the justice -- and probably even the International Criminal Court, if only they had ratified the Rome Statute -- in the near future.

[IfIEverCatchYou]

If you haven't already, would you mind reading about HN's approach to comments and site guidelines?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[nikofeyn]

there is no deep untruth in what i said, and i said it civilly.

you should read the guidelines because i find your newly created username to be disturbing.

[conanbatt]

The WHO arguably made the pandemic worse by discouraging the use of masks, propagating information that turned out to be false and dangerous saying there was no human-to-human interaction and generally sided with china in the informational flow.

Easier to ignore the WHO if you don't give them any money.

[sg47]

Not as dangerous as calling it a democratic hoax or that it'll go down to zero or like a miracle, it'll go away one day.

[parineum]

Unfortunately we don't live in a world of one or the other. Both things happened and both were bad.

Either thing not happening (along with countless others) would have been best.

[Fjolsvith]

I don't think any people died from those things.

[evgen]

The body count from those statements will probably be in the mid-100k or so. By instantly trying to politicise any criticism of his many failures Trump incited his moron followers to ignore the situation in the critical early weeks. States resisted shutdowns to score points with their cheetoh-fuhrer and that will end up killing thousands.

[Fjolsvith]

Show me a death certificate with the cause of death saying "Trump failure".

[gowld]

As bad as WHO may be, the US Federal government was and is far worse on all the same points.

Swapping in Trump and Kushner for WHO is not an improvement.

[0xy]

As far as I was aware the US government issued a travel ban on China while the WHO was still wrongly claiming travel bans are ineffective.

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china...

"Tedros, as he is called, said the WHO does not recommend limiting either trade or travel to China at this time. “In fact, we oppose it,” he said. The health organization said it would question border closures, quarantining of airplane passengers who aren’t ill, and similar steps."

This organization is either totally incompetent or complicit with spreading CCP propaganda. In fact, they reacted significantly slower than the US government.

[llamataboot]

Travel bans are not effective unless they can be strict and from everywhere. Like, if you are a small island country that can keep everyone out or do strict quarantine, sure. But the travel ban on China was just theatrics and "microbial theatre" as is evidenced by, uh, reality.

[throwaway48472]

Italy was one of the first countries to issue a travel ban on Chinese travelers.

South Korea never issued a travel ban.

In order for a travel ban to be effective, it has to be for all incoming travelers. Not just for a specific country.

[aeternum]

>In order for a travel ban to be effective, it has to be for all incoming travelers. Not just for a specific country.

This is not true. A ban on a specific country cannot eliminate the risk but it can still slow the spread just like any mitigation.

[nikofeyn]

there are plenty of ways to slow the spread that doesn't unnecessarily break up families, keep people away from their jobs, create job loss, keep people stranded, and harbor poor goodwill towards another country. the travel ban has uprooted lives, and now here we are, and the u.s. government is still phoning this in. the travel ban against china was a pointless exercise in political posturing and akin to a clam's defense strategy. it isn't a big surprise that the virus still got here, primarily from europe, and we weren't even aware of it because the u.s. wasn't testing nor were they tracking, the two things that have time and time again shown to be extremely effective.

there are plenty of models that quarantining the source only does not work. china even proved this. the initial quarantine of wuhan only was not working, so they had to expand it to everywhere. south korea showed testing and tracking worked better than shutting down travel.

the u.s. travel ban against china was ineffective. however, it will now continue indefinitely because the u.s. is in the middle of a shit show, and this will continue to harm people and businesses affected by the travel ban. it will add months if not years of delays to visa processing everywhere.

[conanbatt]

I'd be on board defunding the fed gov as well!

[ksk]

If masks are so amazing, how come we don't see Fauci or any of the other experts regularly wearing masks?

[henearkr]

In some other countries they do, especially in Europe.

[ksk]

I'm a little suspicious when the real experts don't wear masks, and the internet experts berate you over the head for not wearing one.

[henearkr]

Maybe that's because in front of the media some experts consider to uncover their face as a worthwhile risk, in order to reach to people understanding more easily.

That's not all experts, though, many of them still wear their mask in front of the camera.