Bill Gates, Lancet, UN, and Many Others Lambast America's Withholding of Funds from the WHO (thehill.com) 373
This week U.S. president Donald Trump suspended America's $900 million annual contribution to the World Health Organization. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, called Trump's move a "crime against humanity...."
The Hill reports: "Every scientist, every health worker, every citizen must resist and rebel against this appalling betrayal of global solidarity," he added...
The American Medical Association (AMA) late Tuesday called Trump's decision a "dangerous step in the wrong direction" and urged him to reconsider. "Fighting a global pandemic requires international cooperation and reliance on science and data. Cutting funding to the WHO — rather than focusing on solutions — is a dangerous move at a precarious moment for the world," the AMA said in a statement. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, meanwhile, said Wednesday that there was "no reason justifying" Trump's move...
And Bill Gates said in a tweet that halting funding to the WHO amid a world health crisis "is as dangerous as it sounds."
"Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them," the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist added. "The world needs @WHO now more than ever."
Agreeing with Bill Gates was 95-year-old former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. Newsweek quotes Carter's newly-released statement calling the WHO "the only international organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus."
The head of the United Nations also called the WHO "absolutely critical to the world's efforts to win the war against COVID-19."
While criticizing the WHO, this week an article in the Atlantic called president Trump's moves "a transparent effort to distract from his administration's failure to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic." The Democrats speaker of the House added that Trump's decision "is dangerous, illegal and will be swiftly challenged."
But the science magazine Nature still published an editorial harshly criticizing Trump's attempt to defund the WHO. "[E]ven talk of doing so in the middle of a global health and economic crisis cannot be condemned strongly enough." They argue that withholding America's funds "will place more lives at risk and ensure that the world takes longer to emerge from this crisis... It is right that researchers, funders and governments have been protesting against Trump's decision, and they must continue to do so in the strongest terms."
And Newsweek also published the comments of the WHO's Director-General, who had this message for its critics. "[O]ur focus, my focus, is on stopping this virus and saving lives... This is a time for all of us to be united in our common struggle against a common threat, a dangerous enemy.
"When we're divided, the virus exploits the cracks between us."
The Hill reports: "Every scientist, every health worker, every citizen must resist and rebel against this appalling betrayal of global solidarity," he added...
The American Medical Association (AMA) late Tuesday called Trump's decision a "dangerous step in the wrong direction" and urged him to reconsider. "Fighting a global pandemic requires international cooperation and reliance on science and data. Cutting funding to the WHO — rather than focusing on solutions — is a dangerous move at a precarious moment for the world," the AMA said in a statement. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, meanwhile, said Wednesday that there was "no reason justifying" Trump's move...
And Bill Gates said in a tweet that halting funding to the WHO amid a world health crisis "is as dangerous as it sounds."
"Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them," the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist added. "The world needs @WHO now more than ever."
Agreeing with Bill Gates was 95-year-old former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. Newsweek quotes Carter's newly-released statement calling the WHO "the only international organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus."
The head of the United Nations also called the WHO "absolutely critical to the world's efforts to win the war against COVID-19."
While criticizing the WHO, this week an article in the Atlantic called president Trump's moves "a transparent effort to distract from his administration's failure to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic." The Democrats speaker of the House added that Trump's decision "is dangerous, illegal and will be swiftly challenged."
But the science magazine Nature still published an editorial harshly criticizing Trump's attempt to defund the WHO. "[E]ven talk of doing so in the middle of a global health and economic crisis cannot be condemned strongly enough." They argue that withholding America's funds "will place more lives at risk and ensure that the world takes longer to emerge from this crisis... It is right that researchers, funders and governments have been protesting against Trump's decision, and they must continue to do so in the strongest terms."
And Newsweek also published the comments of the WHO's Director-General, who had this message for its critics. "[O]ur focus, my focus, is on stopping this virus and saving lives... This is a time for all of us to be united in our common struggle against a common threat, a dangerous enemy.
"When we're divided, the virus exploits the cracks between us."
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
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> Cutting the WHO during the middle of a pandemic is unthinkable, but Trump needs someone to blame, and he thinks some blame can be placed there, instead of on him.
How about cutting Taiwan's access to the WHO during the PEAK of the pandemic?
The only thing we need the WHO for now is to investigate the source so we can take better preventative measures. And since you already believe this was caused by 5G towers in your post history, I guess we don't need them.
Re:He knows the cost (Score:5, Informative)
Taiwan lost its membership in WHO in 1971, 49 years ago, when the UN ejected Taiwan in favor of the PRC.
Taiwan access to WHO has been a sore point ever since. We went through exactly the same issues in 2002 with SARS.
The problem is the One China Policy. Even the US does not recognize the legitimacy of the government in Taipei.
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WHO always has and always will have contact with Taiwan at the technical level, Taiwan has full access to the information that the WHO generates and is free to pass on their information to the WHO. It is in their charter that they will work with any country whoever leads it and whatever the political environment is. They are unable to change the reality of international politics which is that China has blocked Taiwan from membership of the UN. So they are unable to grant full political representation to Tai
Re:He knows the cost (Score:5, Insightful)
> The WHO works all around the world helping to battle this disease.
Wrong.
Without the WHO everyone would have had to take precautionary measures. Taiwan does NOT trust China and does NOT have access to the WHO. They "over" reacted and it saved them.
Other countries listened to the WHO: no human to human contact, not an issue, under control, don't ban flights from Wuhan...
Without the WHO, the world would have been better off in this SPECIFIC instance.
I am not against a world organisation in spirit. I am specifically against the corrupt WHO.
Re:He knows the cost (Score:5, Informative)
You are spreading disinformation, the WHO communicated the seriousness of the outbreak globally from the 10th of Jan and had posted warnings to the CDC and the world as early as the 5th of Jan https://www.who.int/news-room/... [who.int]
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It's probably a good idea (Score:3)
And remember that the Red Cross is mostly built to address conflict situations [wikipedia.org]. Meaning you'd have to build them up into what the WHO already is.
We'd be much better off using diplomacy to exert more influence on the existing structures in the WHO.
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> Start a new WHO which somehow is non corrupt. (Very expensive.)
Show me a chart with the cost of the WHO vs the economic impact the the pandemic? You can use grains of rice vs. bags of rice to visualize it if you have difficulties with numbers. Get your parents help to do the conversions if required.
> I'm just not buying any of these arguments that the WHO is so bad
He's a politician not a doctor. This is the first time the head of WHO does not have a medical degree BUT does have a history of cover
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Re: He knows the cost (Score:3)
I repeat, cutting the WHO is insane. Make a list of demands for them to fix stuff maybe, but cutting is just not a sane action.
And use what for leverage?
Perhaps sharing China's lies to the world during a developing pandemic is a worse idea?
Re:He knows the cost (Score:4, Insightful)
This is missing the point.
The goal is not for the WHO to go into bankruptcy, the goal is to incentivize the WHO to enage in some accountability and reform.
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I do not understand... (Score:2, Insightful)
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I have never understood why anyone would support Trump
1) Tax cuts
2) "Build the wall"
3) He talks like a vulgar squab, matching a bunch of the blue collar worker's patterns of speech.
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Most blue collar workers are better-spoken than Trump. Trump's speech patterns are bizarre.
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Most blue collar workers are better-spoken than Trump. Trump's speech patterns are bizarre.
Which makes them feel smart. Trump knows how to stroke people until he doesn't need them any more.
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I wonder if he "knows" this. It's just a habit for him. He probably doesn't truly understand, it's just a reflex, like lying --- he gets away with it, behavior reinforced. There's no knowledge there.
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Did any of those 37 people have Trump as a patient?
If no, then why are they talking about someone they haven't examined, treated, analyzed, etc.?
If yes, who? They'll get their license pulled (assuming they have one) for gross ethical violations.
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I doubt any doctor is going to be allowed near Trump without an off-the-record promise of giving a favorable assessment. Same for all high-ranking politicians.
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Where's my test?
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"Trump is doing exactly what he said he would do over the last 30 years everytime someone asked him if he would run for office."
I trust Trump to be bad for this country. So far, that's exactly what he has been. That he gave us ample warning is an indictment against his supporters, not an endorsement of him. Trump has been a fraud and a con his whole life. He was born to it. He was raised for it. Now he's in the worst possible position for such a person to be in... For the rest of the world, that is.
He's als
Come on November! (Score:3)
Screw Bill Gates (Score:2, Insightful)
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Let him fund the corrupt WHO...he can afford it.
I have a better idea: let Gates lead a Silicon Valley initiative against the virus, using all the methods that made SV so productive and so hated by the politically correct. And yes, this would include letting it use whatever data tracking methods might help.
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Let him fund the corrupt WHO...he can afford it.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are second only to the US government in the amount of money contributed to the WHO. [npr.org] China is WAY down the list. Hell, the fucking Rotary Club gives almost TWICE the amount to the WHO than China.
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Wow.
US assessed $237, voluntary $656M
B & M $531M
China assessed $76M, voluntary to small to show the number, but maybe $5M or so.
Here's the text list...
United States
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Gavi Alliance
Germany
Japan
U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Rotary International
World Bank
European Commission
National Philanthropic Trust
Canada
U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund
Norway
China
Sweden
France
Republic of Korea
Kuwait
Australia
Replace it, Bill! (Score:3)
It's not enough money for Gates to get upset about (Score:3, Insightful)
Gates could personally cover the $400-odd million they'd need to cover it until Jan 21, 2021, by expending 0.5% of his net worth.
No, he's under no obligation, obviously, but anybody who says "billionaires should continue to be taxed lightly because of all the good they do with the money through charity, so much better spent than the government would", can all shut up now. A sentiment Gates agrees with, despite being more charitable than almost any.
It's also just about half of what Bloomberg just dropped on his egopalooza of advertising about the greatness of Michael Bloomberg.
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation already funds 9.4% of the WHO's budget. Compare to the US funding 15.9%. Even if it were possible for President Trump to defund the WHO, though it would cripple coronavirus testing, it would not dissolve the WHO.
President Trump is doing what he does best, which is sewing discord, and distracting the public away from the failures of this administration. Nothing will come of this except possibly a second impeachment, because it looks a lot like what he did with Ukraine.
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if it were possible for President Trump to defund the WHO, though it would cripple coronavirus testing,
Would it? How many coronavirus tests has the WHO conducted so far?
Re:It's not enough money for Gates to get upset ab (Score:5, Informative)
if it were possible for President Trump to defund the WHO, though it would cripple coronavirus testing,
Would it? How many coronavirus tests has the WHO conducted so far?
By the end of January the WHO distributed 250,000 COVID-19 test kits. The WHO runs 16 reference laboratories, 7 are in Asia, 5 in Europe, 2 in Africa, 1 in North America and 1 in Australia. Countries that do not have testing capacity and national laboratories with limited experience on COVID-19 send their tests to the WHO labs for confirmation. By now WHO has performed millions of coronavirus tests worldwide. The WHO is also compiling that data and disseminating it to any country that wants it.
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Re: It's not enough money for Gates to get upset a (Score:3)
Suspending payments pending an investigation is not "defunding" - Trump never said he wanted to defund the WHO.
Why the need to mischaracterize what Trump said?
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What school did you attend?
The one that uses those really pretty discord quilts as a fundraiser.
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A sentiment Gates agrees with, despite being more charitable than almost any.
Bill Gates wants to increase taxes on the rich FYI [gatesnotes.com]
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This tired old chestnut. Sigh.
For those of you who don't realize it, there is no UPPER LIMIT to what the IRS will accept from any taxpayer. If the "rich" are so in favor of paying more, here's a radical suggestion: they can simply PAY MORE instead of employing legions of tax lawyers whose sole purpose is to find every tax loophole there is. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, etc....all of them can simply stroke a check to the IRS whenever they feel like it and it will be ACCEPTED. Seriously, that's how it work
Re:It's not enough money for Gates to get upset ab (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, things tend to work better when *everybody* works under the same rules, especially if it's fairer. Sorta like taking care of a pandemic, now that I think about it.
Re:It's not enough money for Gates to get upset ab (Score:5, Insightful)
Gates could personally cover the $400-odd million they'd need to cover it until Jan 21, 2021, by expending 0.5% of his net worth.
Ignoring the fact that he is already the 2nd largest donor after the US [wikipedia.org] that doesn't actually change whether or not the US defunding is a terrible idea.
No, he's under no obligation, obviously, but anybody who says "billionaires should continue to be taxed lightly because of all the good they do with the money through charity, so much better spent than the government would", can all shut up now.
That seemed like an odd quote for Gates to give since he supports taxing the rich [businessinsider.com].
So I was curious who said that quote you gave, and literally, the only person who ever said that was you just now. [google.com]
So.... are you gonna shut up now?
Not Trump's first crime against humanity (Score:4, Informative)
He is/has: rolled back 95 Environmental Rules [nytimes.com], attacked workers’ rights [epi.org], rolled back human rights [civilrights.org] and so on. There is plenty more. The most egregious of these are the ones that affect those who live in other countries - those who do not have the ability to vote him out.
I fully expect this post to be attacked by those who are only interested in themselves and who are unable to see that short term financial gain will have bad long term effects - eg polluting your own water supply is stupid.
Re:Not Trump's first crime against humanity (Score:4, Informative)
On January 27, Trump signed an executive order – the first version of his Muslim travel ban – that discriminated against Muslims and banned refugees.
False. Patently false. He never banned Muslims, or refugees. He banned travel from nations that are on the US terror list. If you choose to assign more to it than that - it says more about your own racism and intolerance than the President's...
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Now tell him who put those countries on that list in the first place.
Re:Not Trump's first crime against humanity (Score:4, Funny)
The courts reject the Travel ban because it was a Muslim ban. So he added Nprth Korea to the list so he could say it wasn't a Muslim ban (and we all know how many North Korean world travelers there are) . Trump could take a shit on your desk and you'd defend it.
Trump is as bad as XI (Score:3)
So sad.
In America, we have had a string of horrible leaders; reagan, W, and Trump. What total disaster.
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Trump is not more responsible for Covid-19's existence than Xi/PRC. He is however literally infinitely more responsible for our nation's response to the situation, because he's in charge here and they aren't. The buck stops where? Trump is always talking about how you can't trust China, with which I actually agree. But then what did he do? Yep, he trusted China, as echoed by the WHO. He thereby proved either that he just talks bullshit when he talks about China, that he's utterly unqualified to be POTUS, or
How else can you can correct this? (Score:2)
If these people condemn it... (Score:2, Insightful)
If the listed folks condemn it, then Trump is right to do it.
Seriously, if Trump's move is a "crime against humanity", what are we to make of the WHO's original failure — and China's role in it? A super-duper-mega-crime against humanity?
But no, they would not only not denounce those parties, Nature, in particular, apologized recently [nationalreview.com] for calling it "Chinese virus" originally.
This is all just blame shifting (Score:5, Insightful)
Notably absent from the summary... (Score:4, Informative)
Reset image (Score:2)
People misinterpret this (Score:2)
This is being done simply to righfully re-assert control of the WHO and change its leadership. It's ridiculous when the united states pays 10x more than China, yet China dictates what the WHO will and will not do. If you know of any other effective way to make them change their ways, please do share. Otherwise STFU and enjoy the show.
Prediction: the WHO will either reform or will be replaced by an equivalent, US-controlled body. Tedros will be shown the door in either case. Taiwan will be a part of the new
Taiwan informed the W.H.O. in December... (Score:3, Insightful)
The W.H.O. tweeted later in January that it could not be spread from human to human, which was a lie.
The W.H.O.s members( and friends ) spend up towards 200 MILLION a year on "non" essential travel, staying in presidential suites.Yeah, they really need America's money, so they can fucking live it up.
The W.H.O.s current general ( Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ), is from the Communist Ethiopian political party. He has been credibly accused of covering up three different cholera epidemics in Ethiopia. No wonder he's the CCP's bitch.
The W.H.O is not the same organization that called out China during the SAARS outbreak, they've been corrupted by the CCP. The communist shills and TDS looser on Slashdot are useful idiots.
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Well, we do need a scapegoat (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA is about to become the country that gets hit the worst by the virus, and we need someone to take the blame. It can't be the for-profit healthcare system or an administration that not only reacted poorly and too late but also cares more about the loss of profit for its corporate owners than the constituents it allegedly is responsible to, so we need something to deflect to urgently.
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The USA is about to become the country that gets hit the worst by the virus
Per capita? No. See most of Yurop.
Overall? No. See China. See India.
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The US has by now almost the number of per-million cases Italy has. And given that it has roughly half as many per-million tests done, including unknown cases it already very likely passed Italy. It's likely that no later than next week even the official numbers will pass Italy, given their flattening curve and the US' one not even showing a slow down.
Do we have to wait 'til it passes Spain that you take it serious? Or is it only a problem once you get past the ridiculous per-capita levels of city states li
Trump Trolls The WHO (Score:2)
News at 11. This year's bill was paid. No finances have been affected ATM. And he got everyone talking about what *he* wanted them to talk about.
Bring in the new boss, same as the old boss.
Won't get fooled again!
Or will we?
Tedros is in CPPs pocket. (Score:2)
WHO could not have withheld or delayed information (Score:4, Informative)
"15 officials from Trump's administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31. At least six other U.S. officials at WHO headquarters dedicated most of their time to the virus, and two others worked remotely with the WHO on covid-19 full time. In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body’s conclusions and recommendations."
So there is no way the WHO would have been able to withhold or delay the release of essential information.
I used to hate Gates (Score:3)
Back in the days when he ran MS, I hated his guts.
And nowadays I find myself defending him against absurd crackpot conspiracy theories.
Strange times.
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Re:Slashdot finally found revenue... (Score:5, Funny)
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The truth is that when people in agrarian societies die a lot from preventable diseases, the natural tendency is to have a lot of kids, as soon as possible, so that when a few family members are bedridden, the others can take over the work. This is particularly true of plasmodium vivax, a version of malaria that's less likely to kill you, but may recur over and over again, taking you out of the workforce each time. You need the kids to do the work for you. The problem with having so many children when there
Re: Slashdot finally found revenue... (Score:3)
No, it is surely a cause of population explosion. Look at it stochastically.
A couple wants 99% probability of 2 or more kids surviving into adulthood. Now consider 2 situations :
1. A country where the probability of EACH child surviving to adulthood is 99.9%. Here, the couple may have only 2 kids. This is the case in most developed countries.
2. A country where the probability of each child surviving to adulthood is 50%. To achieve this, the couple needs to have 7 kids. But, if all couples have 7 kids, on an
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Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium to the surrounding environment...
And then go extinct when their nice, little valley and special pool of water changes.
Re:Slashdot finally found revenue... (Score:4, Interesting)
Increased quality of life leads to lower birth rates.
Decrease poverty? People have fewer children.
Increase food security? People have fewer children.
Provide better health care? People have fewer children.
You'd think these things would lead to an INCREASE in population, since people are living longer, healthier lives - and it's absolutely true that they do - but they're also having fewer children to begin with, so you get *fewer* people living longer, healthier lives rather than a more people living basically long enough to raise a hoard of children of their own.
=Smidge=
Re: Slashdot finally found revenue... (Score:2)
Youâ(TM)re an idiot. Prosperous societies have less children.
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YouÃ(TM)re an idiot.
Oooh, that's a nice moderd twist on the traditional "Your an idiot", though I guess it's the same gag for all intensive porpoises.
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You know, I never thought I'd see the day when Slashdot vigorously defended Bill Gates, even after Taco left and the site was sold. What a sad place it has arrived at.
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Ivy Mike says hello?
Re:Screw the who (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screw the who (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm more curious as to what you wish to reform. Do you specifically want the WHO to become a political organisation that question's government data as opposed to an organisation setup to study official data published by the governments of the world?
If you do the former they cease being useful on a global level. ... like by a shitton.
If you let them continue to do the latter you will next time again shoot the messenger for what is fundamentally incorrect data provided to them.
If you want them to be truly independent and do all their own research, you better be prepared to increase their funding
The fact that China can exert influence on the WHO (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody else on
The original comment is here [slashdot.org] and it's spot on. This is what happens when American fails to lead.
Re: The fact that China can exert influence on the (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't believe I'm going to write this.
Don't be "pretty sure" that something that happened is the same thing that conforms to your worldview of what you would like to think. What you wrote sounds like you want to shift the blame to someone you want to blame.
So don't just go by your gut. Research it. Look up the state department under the first secretary of state President Trump appointed. The whole department didn't resign on January 20, 2017.
Why do I even post? No one investigates their hunch. They just post that they're pretty sure on the internet.
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Wow the Trump derangement syndrome is strong with you.
BuT iTs HiLlArYs FaUlT
Here's the thing about deranged Trumpanzees. Normal people have political preferences, but can give you a long list of things they dislike about their preferred candidate, because normal, sane, rational people are capable of realising that no single person or party is every going to perfectly match every bit of their worldview, and your choice of who to vote for is a set of tradeoffs.
Deranged Trumpanzees will never, ever every admit
Re: The fact that China can exert influence on the (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, Trumpian leadership. The buck stops with the first person or people not around to defend themselves.
Trump doesn't appoint leadership that has previously supported other candidates, or has said anything bad about Trump. Trump doesn't even bother with creating "acting" leadership that has appropriate expertise, instead adding any crony at hand as "acting" something-or-other since even a Republican Senate won't sink that low. But it's the disloyalists who have left that have denied Trump the ability to maintain the State department as a bastion of technocrats. Got it.
"The buck stops somewhere else" is not only Trump's personal motto, but the rallying cry of his hardcore supporters.
The comment that you responded to already explained it. Try actually reading what was written. The WHO is sponsored by nations including the US and China. The US and US State Department has withdrawn from engagement with virtually everyone. China engages with everything that it can. Surprise, building relationships an influence prior to a crisis tends to get you your way. Throwing tantrums in the midst of a crisis does not.
Re:Screw the who (Score:4, Informative)
The WHO is reliant on the data it receives. It doesn't have staff or any legal basis for doing its own investigations. The most it can do is question data it gets, but even then it has to be very careful to avoid becoming politicised and avoid getting cut off from the data it needs.
Anyway, it's not like the US wasn't saying exactly the same thing. Here's Trump's tweet: https://twitter.com/realDonald... [twitter.com]
"China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!"
Posted on the 24th of January 2020. So if China did lie then Trump fell for it too, not just the WHO who he is now blaming.
Bullshit (Score:3)
Never let the facts cloud insincere political rhetoric.
â On 31 December 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia
unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. From
31 December 2019 through 3 January 2020, a total of 44 case-patients with pneumonia of
unknown etiology were reported to WHO by the national authorities in China. During this
reported period, the causal agent was not identified
â The Chinese authorities identified a new type of coronavirus, which was isolated on 7
January 2020.
https://www.who.int/docs/defau... [who.int]
As of 21 January 2020, a total of 314 confirmed cases have been reported for novel
coronavirus (2019-nCoV) globally;
â Of the 314 cases reported, 309 cases were reported from China, two from Thailand, one from
Japan and one from the Republic of Korea;
â Cases in Thailand, Japan and the Republic of Korea were exported from Wuhan City, China;
â Of the 309 confirmed cases in China, 270 cases were confirmed from Wuhan;
â Of the 270 cases, 51 cases are severely ill and 12 are in critical condition.
https://www.who.int/docs/defau... [who.int]
Re: The W.H.O Is Corrupt (Score:2)
Even if it was true it would be irrelevant. They are absolutely necessary at this time.
Re: The W.H.O Is Corrupt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: The W.H.O Is Corrupt (Score:3)
What a compelling argument from someone who clearly has no idea what the WHO even does.
Re: How so (Score:2)
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It is truly sad that there are people as clueless as this
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No, they are absolutely part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The summary above says we give WHO $900M/year... if everything WHO is so valuable, maybe every other nation can pitch in and take up the slack... once our review is done, funding will resume, until then, maybe every other country can double/triple their contributions to make up the difference.
The US is already $99m behind on payments https://www.who.int/about/fina... [who.int] Others are already paying more than their fair share, the US produces about 24% global gdp, but contributes about 16% of WHO's budget.
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And so is the American Medical association.
Fighting a pandemic requires only ONE thing: Banning international travel without very long quarantines and decontamination protocols.
It's basically the same process we need to implement to prevent any other invasive species.
Re:The W.H.O Is Corrupt (Score:4, Insightful)
Go back to cloud cuckoo land.
Banning international travel will work every bit as effectively as your wall is at keeping drugs out of the USA.
Actually, it would - as the WHO correctly pointed out - make things worse because then the international travel would happen illegally, and then you can't quarantine any of the high risk travellers.
And you forgot: at the time you were thinking of doing this, long before you would actually be able to implement it, Covid-19 was already rampant in America, but asymptomatically, so without tests, so you had no way of knowing it.
What WHO said (Score:2, Informative)
On Jan. 21, Dr. Fauci emphasized that it was unclear [msn.com] whether the virus could spread from person to person: "Is it a continual spread? Is it sustained? We're not quite sure yet." A University of Minnesota expert offered that "this is one of those inflection moments in outbreak history where we have enough information to be very concerned, but not enough information to say this is going to be an international crisis."
In a Jan. 23 Journal of the American Medical Association podcast [ama-assn.org], Dr. Fauci repeatedly downp
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not Trump, not Fox:
https://youtu.be/bpQFCcSI0pU [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
More proof that it's fake then.
Re:All the W.H.O. has to do... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all the dead cat strategy [wikipedia.org] trying to distract from the real questions. - Trump desperately wants people to stop asking questions like: what happened in February? Why did the USA waste six weeks in reacting to Coronavirus? Why can a federal country like Germany do so much better, even with an equally late start? Why are there practically no coronavirus deaths in South Korea and New Zealand whilst the US has tens of thousands of deaths? If the WHO was wrong to ignore warnings from Taiwan then why is it okay that the US government which has actual investigative experts in the CDC and is a Taiwan ally to ignore the same warnings?
Re: (Score:2)
The reason why is because instead of telling the world a virus was coming, they encouraged people to travel for Chinese New Year's and they killed anybody trying to tell the world that the epidemic had been spotted and they ordered all the records and samples in local hospitals destroyed.
The world should have shut down all international travel when this was first noticed November 17. And kept it shut down until it had run its course. It would never have become pandemic that way- never have even become an
Re:All the W.H.O. has to do... (Score:4, Insightful)
That would have helped. Sadly, Trump didn't even try to do that. He let thousands of people back into the country without any screening, because there were no tests. Which is his fault for ignoring warnings and also for compromising our pandemic response system. He wants us to believe that this is all someone else's fault, but it is not. The WHO rightfully has a share of the blame, but not all of it.
Every single person who came from China should have been quarantined, national or not. No travel ban required. Restricting travel to only residents would have also been reasonable. Neither of those things happened, timely or not.
Re: Go to hell (Score:2)
He does, and they do, you idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
What's the definition of insanity?
The opposite sanity.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure Gates could write a check for the difference if he really wanted to. But he hasn't. That's very telling.
Excerpt from current WHO income:
US assessed $237, voluntary $656M
B & M $531M