US abandons global fight against COVID-19

[mrswdk]

The US Government has been blasted by EU, Chinese and Five Eyes governments, the American Medical Association, Bill Gates and countless others for its dangerous and reckless decision to end its support for the WHO, the body leading the global response against COVID-19:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52291654

[HitRed]

Not following the crowd is hard. Trump pays for results not membership.

[jusplay4fun]

The WHO and China: Dereliction of Duty
https://www.cfr.org/blog/who-and-china-dereliction-duty

The World Health Organization (WHO) was founded in 1948 with the lofty goal of ensuring the attainment of the highest possible level of health by all people. In the years since, the organization has been instrumental in controlling or eradicating communicable diseases and investing in healthcare capacity across the globe. However, the WHO is now facing rising international criticism over outsized Chinese influence in the organization’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
The WHO’s weak response to China’s mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak has laundered China’s image at the expense of the WHO’s credibility. The time is ripe for clear leadership from the WHO based on science not politics.

Blog Post by Michael Collins
February 27, 2020

The WHO Director-General (DG) Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been an outspoken advocate for the Chinese government’s COVID-19 response. On January 28, Tedros met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Following the meeting, Tedros commended China for “setting a new standard for outbreak control” and praised the country’s top leadership for its “openness to sharing information” with the WHO and other countries. Yet in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, Chinese officials were busy arresting and punishing citizens for “spreading rumors” about the disease, while online censors controlled the flow of information. Despite growing evidence of China’s mishandling of the outbreak and rising domestic Chinese outrage over the government’s censorship, Tedros remains unmoved. On February 20 at the Munich Security Conference, Tedros doubled down on his praise for China stating that “China has bought the world time.”

More concerning is Tedros’ delay in declaring COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). On January 23, the WHO’s emergency committee was split on whether to declare a PHEIC. With final authority resting with the DG, Tedros decided to wait despite admitting that “this is an emergency in China.” A week later, he declared a PHEIC. By that point, confirmed cases of COVID-19 had increased tenfold with 7,781 cases across 18 countries. John Mackenzie, a member of the WHO executive committee, publicly stated that international action would have been different if not for China’s “reprehensible” obfuscation of outbreak's extent.

[jusplay4fun]

China Is Fighting the Coronavirus Propaganda War to Win
Beijing isn’t interested in a tit-for-tat media feud with the United States—it’s going for escalation dominance.
BY SUZANNE NOSSEL| MARCH 20, 2020, 10:07 AM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/20/china-coronavirus-propaganda-war-journalists-press-freedom/

The Chinese government’s crackdown on foreign media over the last seven years has been multipronged. Strictures imposed by a half dozen distinct government agencies prohibit Chinese nationals from reporting for international news outlets, subject foreign journalists to frequent and strict visa and credentialing requirements, and constrain travel to certain regions of the country. (Almost all reporting on China’s gigantic Uighur internment camps in Xinjiang province is forbidden.) News outlets receive warnings of harsh reprisals for stories that depict Chinese leaders as corrupt or authoritarian. Stories questioning the health of the Chinese economy also rankle, sometimes resulting in foreign reporters being reprimanded or punished by.

[jusplay4fun]

The premise of this thread is BIASED (and I am SHOCKED...!...) and is simply UNTRUE.

WHO is a pawn of the Chinese government and cannot be trusted.

See my previous 2 posts as well.

JP

Trump says US to send medical supplies to Italy, France, Spain
https://www.france24.com/en/20200330-trump-says-us-to-send-medical-supplies-to-italy-france-spain

President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States will send medical equipment for combating the coronavirus pandemic to Italy and later France and Spain.
Trump, speaking at his daily briefing at the White House, went into few specifics about the type of aid or the timing, but said a large quantity was destined for Italy, which has the world's highest pandemic death toll.
"We're going to be sending approximately $100 million worth of, of things, of surgical and medical and hospital things to Italy," he said, adding that Italy's prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, was "very, very happy I will tell you that."

Trump orders U.S. to send Italy medical supplies, other aid to help coronavirus fight

https://globalnews.ca/news/6807021/coronavirus-trump-italy-aid/

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday ordered top U.S. administration officials to help Italy in fighting the novel coronavirus by providing medical supplies, humanitarian relief and other assistance.
In a memo to several Cabinet ministers, Trump ordered a variety of measures to help Italy, including making U.S. military personnel in the country available for telemedicine services, helping set up field hospitals, and transporting supplies.

[mrswdk]

The WHO’s weak response to China’s mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak has laundered China’s image at the expense of the WHO’s credibility.

You are right, the fact China has far more effectively contained it's COVID-19 outbreak than many other countries shows China sucks, and the WHO sucks because it, like Trump and countless others, has recognised that China did a good job of containing COVID-19:

[mrswdk]

Let's give the NSA trollbot a few minutes to update its whataboutism code and have another go.

[betiko]

hopefully we have china to save the day!
bless you chinese friends! <3

[mrswdk]

Chinese-European good friends forever (^0^)

[HitRed]

What is a destructive virus among friends

[jimboston]

Now is probably the wrong time to stop funding the WHO.

That said, after the crisis, it will be long-past time to review and adjust US funding of WHO and the UN and other International Organizations.

Look at the link and it shows the top finders... the main funder being the US and then number two is Bill Gates.
Where is China? India? Why are these countries not in the Top Ten? It used to be “because the US has more money”. What’s the argument now?
Our GDP is still higher than China, but not so much that China shouldn’t be in the Top 10. You could also base it on population and in that case China and India should both be contributing more!

[jusplay4fun]

weak responses; try again?

Let's give the NSA trollbot a few minutes to update its whataboutism code and have another go.