Thank you for posting this, it was nice to see Honk Kong's status under review; does congress need to approve? We have tools we can use to reign in China's harmful behavior - perhaps next in the dock for consideration should be China's Most Favored Nation status....
I would love to see some of the money routed to NIH.gov instead. They have lost a great deal of funding over the years and we have a greater need for scientific research of diseases now more than ever.
Agreed, if we had a fallback solution it wouldn't be so bad, but as is, I just feel like the whole world is the worse for it.
Hopefully something good will come of it, but I can't see what from here. Funding cuts to CDC, now this. I just wonder whether the WHO could have been repaired as-is?
> I just wonder whether the WHO could have been repaired as-is
But that's the thing. The WHO isn't perfect and I'm uncomfortable with how much power China has inside of the UN in general, but I don't understand why people are saying it's broken. I've been searching for those arguments and the only sources I can find are conspiracy theorists and far-right news organizations. Could you please explain the reasons you think the WHO isn't functioning?
President Trump has spent the past four years trying to cut funding to the NIH and congress has repeatedly overridden him. I would be shocked if that money went anywhere but the places he thinks will fire up his base of voters.
This likely means that the United States will not cooperate with the W.H.O. to investigate the true origins of the virus, wherever it originated in the world.
"wherever it originated in the world?" are you a CCP shill? it originated in China. Wuhan Province. It's not a mystery. And talk about not cooperating, that would be the CCP. Who not only destroyed all evidence on the ground but was and is unwilling to share any data with the world. Oh yeah, they also lied about the virus and how bad it was. They also got the WHO to say it wasn't a big deal and there was no person to person transmission. All that means is your asking the wrong question to stir things up.
Yes, the virus was first detected by China, in the Wuhan province, in December, because they had a health surveillance system in place to report strange pneumonia cases.
But new evidence are being revealed that the virus may have originated elsewhere.
France confirmed they had the virus in November, but didn’t know about it, and brushed it off as the flu.
The United States, had strange pneumonia deaths in mid to late 2019, but no one investigated it.
It appears your first mode, is to attack anyone that doesn’t agree with your narrative or view of the world.
===
Edit: Responding to Nico below.
Agreed. Find the trail.
The interesting thing is, why didn’t this virus also show up in Africa, in large amounts?
There must be a lot of business people that travel between China and Africa. So if it originated in China, then I would think that Africa would have been hit early on, as well. But that didn’t happen.
The first estimate of the virus is 6 October 2019 – 11 December 2019 ( Wuhan ). Saying that it was earlier in Europe / US is speculation and not based on facts.
Sure, there is plenty of travel between China and Africa, but maybe the proportion of the population that travels internationally is much smaller than in Europe or the US?
We're seeing how Brazil lagged, but is now rapidly increasing the number of cases; couldn't it just be that on average people travel less, are less urbanized, and so it took longer to get the epidemic going?
It just doesn't matter in Africa. People are dying of disease every day. They have river blindness, tuberculosis, HIV, cholera, west nile virus, parasitic worms of every type, malaria... oh, and also the Wuhan lab virus, which usually doesn't even kill people.
There is no reason to test for the virus. There is no reason to care at all. It's a rounding error in the disease statistics.
At the battle of Gettysburg, or at the Las Vegas massacre, blisters and skinned knees weren't a concern. It's not that they didn't happen, but they were such a low priority that the doctors weren't going to care.
No, the goal is simply to please Trump's immature ego.
In his view, it doesn't matter if someone is right or wrong. What matters for him is whether someone is pictured as a winner or a loser. He's trying to take the conversation from a rational to an emotional level, and way too many people are falling for this trap.
The coronavirus outbreak in the US, one of the most serious in the world, is threatening his "winner" status. By blaming the WHO, he is trying to shed himself of responsibility, claiming that they didn't do their job right (we know he was briefed multiple times and ignored the warnings). Cutting funding is simply the next step for him to emphasize who is the loser, which in turn makes him the winner of the conflict.
Trump's stupidity aside, I think it's hard to argue that the WHO didn't make serious errors and delayed various recommendations and warnings at the suggestion of China.
I think the questions we should ask is... "What are we paying 118 million per year for if they're going to lie to us during the biggest outbreak in modern history?".
I hate to see you getting down-voted because I do agree with point one. It won't diminish Chinese influence at all. In fact, it might increase their influence. China has always worked to replace America, why not at the UN?
China and Russia have been increasing soft power significantly over the past few years by filling voids the USA has left. We have been leaving the table, and they have been taking our seats.
It will surely increase China's influence over the WHO itself, but so what? It will substantially decrease the influence of the WHO in general. It is likely that Australia and other countries will cut funding as well.
The real story may well end up be that China used the WHO to benefit them at the expense of everyone else, severely damaging the reputation of the WHO.
If it were up to me, I would do the same thing as Trump. I'm not saying that Trump isn't distracting people, but that does not mean he is wrong about the WHO. China has a lot of influence over the WHO, and the actions of the WHO benefited China while slowing down the rest of the world's response to the pandemic.
At best, the WHO is dangerously ineffective. But seeing as how China groomed their leader, who had previously helped China cover up cholera outbreaks outside of their factories, it seems likely that the WHO was just helping buy China time while they stocked up on supplies, while it spread.
I'm curious, can anyone defend the WHO, or justify giving them money? Let China pay them all they want. It is essentially just the de-facto CHO at this point.
Once upon a time, the USSR quit the UN Security Council in protest over something or other.
China's seat was held by Taiwan at the time, so we wound up with a UN-endorsed anti-communist war in Korea despite China and Russia both being actually communist.
Some bridges are worth burning, but in this case (and overall with this administration) all we’re doing is burning the bridges we built. These were not the bridges worth burning.
I don't agree with this. Freezing of funding, investigating, etc. is fine, we should. But this is like the withdrawing of ambassadors. Not quite breaking off diplomatic relations but we really should want more cooperation with US and UN officials, not less.
If the US pays a magnitude of money more than China to the WHO, how are we to believe that the WHO is China's puppet, and not an extension of western power? How is China so clever with its maneuverings that its relatively puny contributions go so far?
I don't know if it's bribery at work here. Rather, it's anger at American behavior over the last decades which is pushing it closer to China. America is the WHO's primary superpower sponsor, and protector. In the courtship of a new sponsor, China, it could be just that: stoking anger and offering a choice.
I don't know either. I think all of this is obviously couched in the fact that the poor initial US response to Coronavirus has made it politically expedient to [make this a story about China] (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-memo-advises-candidates...)
That doesn't mean the WHO or China have clean hands, just that in an election year for the US my bias would lean towards this being about politics.
Because they've actually have been trying to manipulate this institution and the west has generally frowned on corruption in necessary institutions. Its one of the big things that is in the west core beliefs. This is why this is taken seriously. At this point, it would be against the US beliefs to manipulate the WHO so the only thing it can do is build a new one free of corruption from the ground up. It happens a lot.
Does it ever occur to you that other agencies might have better relationships and trust with other countries? That people might just not respond very well to bullying money or not ?
I'm saying a communist dictatorship is corrupt. Most of what "western" and I include japan, Taiwan, SE Asian, and Korea in that is nitpicking for the greater good.
I think if those agency have better relations with countries who ideology and goals are stark contrast with your that is corruption at least in the west eyes. If that agency ideology has change its very reasonable to leave.
What do you expect the US to do? Let very blatant misuse of their resource and personnel continue. I'm pretty sure most Americans would let their country burn before that occurred.
That's one of the biggest flaws of the Trump administration's thinking - that everything is always about money.
In my limited experience, people join NGOs like the WHO because they seek influence, recognition, or personal "mission" based fulfillment.
If China has been developing relationships and giving officials the above, then it absolutely could have influence far outside its financial contributions.
Who's performance has been abysmal, and they've proven to be the lap dog of the CCP. I totally agreed with the funding hiatus, this is a surprise move to me. There's a lot we don't know.
Agree. You apparently don't know the difference between a blame-shifting President, far-right propaganda, and the truth. No institution is perfect, but the WHO was OUR institution, created largely by the US, to control global pandemics. Since we've apparently decided to ignore their advice as well as the advice of our own scientists and the NIH, we are conveniently blaming the WHO.
It gives the US the ability to create a non-corrupt institution. Right now the WHO is not a reliable global partner. If the US can find other people that feel this way you get a more efficient institution that possibly is more efficient.
Whats not safe is continuing to work with someone obvious playing fast and lose with the world.
That's based off of what evidence? When I search for "WHO corruption" I only find conspiracy theory youTube videos and far-right leaning publications that have a leg in that race.
Besides, as was said earlier, this is the equivalent of pulling diplomats out of a country. If corruption is the issue (and I'm not convinced it is) then you'd cut funding. This is a political stunt which is trying to draw attention away from an administrations failed response to a pandemic.
I'm sorry, wasn't the interview with Dr. Bruce Aylward enough to convince you that there's something seriously wrong with the organization's leadership?
No, I see a physician-epidemiologist by training from Newfoundland Canada struggling to manage a global pandemic with two global superpowers in a political arm wrestling match on the global stage when he knows he needs both to cooperate.
Somehow withdrawing funding from the current only worldwide public health organization at the beginning of a pandemic seems ?? shortsighted.
Is trump admitting that he is incapable of negotiating his desired changes in WHO functionality, that his ability to communicate and work with international players is so deficient that his only option is to take his baseball bat and baseball and go home?
Or is this all a political move to attempt to shift the 'blame' for his/Trump's failings to some other boogeyman? My bet is on this option -- he failed to recognize the magnitude of the epidemic, he failed to take timely and early actions to mitigate the impact on the US economy and lives, he repeatedly minimized the size of the tsunami of death that was approaching our shores, he failed to motivate his FDA/CDC to get working PCR viral tests immediately and produce them in the amounts needed, he failed to coordinate obtaining necessary PPE supplies for the 50 states leading to a dysfunctional free-for-all where states were bidding against each other and FEMA confiscated all shipments they could find, he refused to take any responsibility for all of the above failures, he has recommended use of experimental medical treatments out of clinical trials (hydroxychloroquine), he has actively interfered with the public health necessity of transitioning the US to a "mask wearing culture" by making it a macho / political question instead of a life saving public health intervention, he has demanded that States not follow the 'reopening' metrics advanced by his own covid-19 group.... need I continue?
We all saw this happening in China for 2-3 months before it got here, then in Italy a month before it got here. It was all over the news. And we did nothing, as you note.
So now the line is that the WHO abetted some sort of cover-up? Does everyone have the memory of a goldfish?
I've been seeing a lot of posts that feel like they're being made in good faith get downvoted because they don't support far-right leaning politics. I'm concerned about this trend on HN.
There's a not insignificant far-right presence on this website and many are quite adept at toeing that line between "just asking questions" and "outright stating their position" by filling their responses with obscurantist nonsense. It is indeed concerning.
That word "far" shouldn't be used to describe what half the population supports.
If you bend the definition of "far" well past the breaking point, then these are all far-left positions: universal healthcare, voting by mail, DACA, assault rifle bans, handgun bans, legal abortion, trans recognition...
No matter who is president, "far" is not an appropriate word. The president won a popularity contest, and is thus inherently not "far".
If half the country is far-right, then the other half must be far-left (to stay calibrated on the center), and "far" has lost all meaning.
Further to my original comment, as you can see, bringing this up results in your comment being flagged while other users freely go about spreading racist rhetoric. Just a few days ago I had a "discussion" with a user who drew an equivalence between "black lives matter" and an honest to goodness white nationalist slogan, and when I challenged this, mumbled about the ADL's "agenda". Guess who got flagged?
65 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] threadhttps://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12664558344579686...
He already cut NIH and is now doing the same with WHO. These both are bad decisions from an incompetent leader.
This is a sad situation... Again.
Hopefully something good will come of it, but I can't see what from here. Funding cuts to CDC, now this. I just wonder whether the WHO could have been repaired as-is?
This likely means that the United States will not cooperate with the W.H.O. to investigate the true origins of the virus, wherever it originated in the world.
It doesn't even matter where the virus comes from. Why was South Korea able to handle it better than the US?
This is just the first one that spread globally.
We have handled it atrociously here in the US, and the reasons were myriad. But it's disingenuous to compare nations, we all operate differently.
Yes, the virus was first detected by China, in the Wuhan province, in December, because they had a health surveillance system in place to report strange pneumonia cases.
But new evidence are being revealed that the virus may have originated elsewhere.
France confirmed they had the virus in November, but didn’t know about it, and brushed it off as the flu.
The United States, had strange pneumonia deaths in mid to late 2019, but no one investigated it.
It appears your first mode, is to attack anyone that doesn’t agree with your narrative or view of the world.
===
Edit: Responding to Nico below.
Agreed. Find the trail.
The interesting thing is, why didn’t this virus also show up in Africa, in large amounts?
There must be a lot of business people that travel between China and Africa. So if it originated in China, then I would think that Africa would have been hit early on, as well. But that didn’t happen.
Path to the US:
> Wuhan + China - Europe - US
Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande...
The first estimate of the virus is 6 October 2019 – 11 December 2019 ( Wuhan ). Saying that it was earlier in Europe / US is speculation and not based on facts.
We're seeing how Brazil lagged, but is now rapidly increasing the number of cases; couldn't it just be that on average people travel less, are less urbanized, and so it took longer to get the epidemic going?
There is no reason to test for the virus. There is no reason to care at all. It's a rounding error in the disease statistics.
At the battle of Gettysburg, or at the Las Vegas massacre, blisters and skinned knees weren't a concern. It's not that they didn't happen, but they were such a low priority that the doctors weren't going to care.
Who is going to be the trusted source now? The NIH?
Every year Trump proposes budget cuts to the NIH, and Congress ignores him and increases the budget.
I bet this money will end up in private companies' pocket.
The US funds about $118 million per year to the who (roughly double what China pays).
https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/as...
In his view, it doesn't matter if someone is right or wrong. What matters for him is whether someone is pictured as a winner or a loser. He's trying to take the conversation from a rational to an emotional level, and way too many people are falling for this trap.
The coronavirus outbreak in the US, one of the most serious in the world, is threatening his "winner" status. By blaming the WHO, he is trying to shed himself of responsibility, claiming that they didn't do their job right (we know he was briefed multiple times and ignored the warnings). Cutting funding is simply the next step for him to emphasize who is the loser, which in turn makes him the winner of the conflict.
I think the questions we should ask is... "What are we paying 118 million per year for if they're going to lie to us during the biggest outbreak in modern history?".
The real story may well end up be that China used the WHO to benefit them at the expense of everyone else, severely damaging the reputation of the WHO.
If it were up to me, I would do the same thing as Trump. I'm not saying that Trump isn't distracting people, but that does not mean he is wrong about the WHO. China has a lot of influence over the WHO, and the actions of the WHO benefited China while slowing down the rest of the world's response to the pandemic.
At best, the WHO is dangerously ineffective. But seeing as how China groomed their leader, who had previously helped China cover up cholera outbreaks outside of their factories, it seems likely that the WHO was just helping buy China time while they stocked up on supplies, while it spread.
I'm curious, can anyone defend the WHO, or justify giving them money? Let China pay them all they want. It is essentially just the de-facto CHO at this point.
China's seat was held by Taiwan at the time, so we wound up with a UN-endorsed anti-communist war in Korea despite China and Russia both being actually communist.
They rejoined the Security Council after that.
Who cares who has influence in some organization I don't care about! And more importantly, I also don't have pay for it. I couldn't care less!
The WHO has been in scandal before regarding [exorbitant spending on travel.] (https://apnews.com/3d8569ea7bd140e4ba02bc1712cd12ab)
That doesn't mean the WHO or China have clean hands, just that in an election year for the US my bias would lean towards this being about politics.
Does it ever occur to you that other agencies might have better relationships and trust with other countries? That people might just not respond very well to bullying money or not ?
I think if those agency have better relations with countries who ideology and goals are stark contrast with your that is corruption at least in the west eyes. If that agency ideology has change its very reasonable to leave.
What do you expect the US to do? Let very blatant misuse of their resource and personnel continue. I'm pretty sure most Americans would let their country burn before that occurred.
In my limited experience, people join NGOs like the WHO because they seek influence, recognition, or personal "mission" based fulfillment.
If China has been developing relationships and giving officials the above, then it absolutely could have influence far outside its financial contributions.
Whats not safe is continuing to work with someone obvious playing fast and lose with the world.
That's based off of what evidence? When I search for "WHO corruption" I only find conspiracy theory youTube videos and far-right leaning publications that have a leg in that race.
Besides, as was said earlier, this is the equivalent of pulling diplomats out of a country. If corruption is the issue (and I'm not convinced it is) then you'd cut funding. This is a political stunt which is trying to draw attention away from an administrations failed response to a pandemic.
Is trump admitting that he is incapable of negotiating his desired changes in WHO functionality, that his ability to communicate and work with international players is so deficient that his only option is to take his baseball bat and baseball and go home?
Or is this all a political move to attempt to shift the 'blame' for his/Trump's failings to some other boogeyman? My bet is on this option -- he failed to recognize the magnitude of the epidemic, he failed to take timely and early actions to mitigate the impact on the US economy and lives, he repeatedly minimized the size of the tsunami of death that was approaching our shores, he failed to motivate his FDA/CDC to get working PCR viral tests immediately and produce them in the amounts needed, he failed to coordinate obtaining necessary PPE supplies for the 50 states leading to a dysfunctional free-for-all where states were bidding against each other and FEMA confiscated all shipments they could find, he refused to take any responsibility for all of the above failures, he has recommended use of experimental medical treatments out of clinical trials (hydroxychloroquine), he has actively interfered with the public health necessity of transitioning the US to a "mask wearing culture" by making it a macho / political question instead of a life saving public health intervention, he has demanded that States not follow the 'reopening' metrics advanced by his own covid-19 group.... need I continue?
We all saw this happening in China for 2-3 months before it got here, then in Italy a month before it got here. It was all over the news. And we did nothing, as you note.
So now the line is that the WHO abetted some sort of cover-up? Does everyone have the memory of a goldfish?
It's a brilliant stroke of irony that this post is getting silently downvoted instead of anybody giving a substantive response.
If you bend the definition of "far" well past the breaking point, then these are all far-left positions: universal healthcare, voting by mail, DACA, assault rifle bans, handgun bans, legal abortion, trans recognition...
No matter who is president, "far" is not an appropriate word. The president won a popularity contest, and is thus inherently not "far".
If half the country is far-right, then the other half must be far-left (to stay calibrated on the center), and "far" has lost all meaning.
I think you're running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... People with opposite political views have exactly the opposite perception of HN.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23356296.
Next: the UN!
The US under Trump wants to make billions of profits because of Covid-19.
The WHO wants to make the medicine available for free.
That's why he is out of the WHO and frankly, if that is the reason, the WHO is better off without the US.
Ps. I have no doubt that he would buy the stock of the creator of the vaccine to earn billions with his access to private information.