Here’s why the WHO is coming under attack.
President Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against the World Health Organization on Tuesday, accusing it of acting too slowly to sound the alarm about the coronavirus. It was not the first time in this pandemic that the global health body has faced such criticism.
The WHO, a U.N. agency, has defended its response, saying Wednesday that it alerted the world to the threat posed by the virus in a timely manner and that it was “committed to ensuring all member states are able to respond effectively to this pandemic.” The WHO endorsed the government’s claims, saying in mid-January, for example, that human-to-human transmission had not been proved.
At one point during the SARS epidemic, officials at hospitals in Beijing forced SARS patients into ambulances and drove them around to avoid their being seen by a visiting delegation of WHO experts, according to reports at the time.Even as the virus spread to more than half a dozen countries and forced China to place parts of Hubei province under lockdown in late January, the WHO was reluctant to declare it a global health emergency.
Story continues“It reinforced the reluctance to take early strong measures before the catastrophe had actually landed on other shores,” said François Godement, senior adviser for Asia at Institut Montaigne, a nonprofit group in Paris. “The WHO’s tardiness or reluctance to call out the problem in full helped those who wanted to delay difficult decisions."
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