Trump is a populist who masters the art of redirecting blame.
Yet, away from the trend of demonizing everything Trump says or does, we need to take a look at the WHO and China.
From what I read and observed in various countries, the WHO is not beyond blame.
Timeline of Covid-19 spread from China to the world
The Guardian-the inside story of the WHO's response to coronavirus
By end December the WHO received indications from China of several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people. Taiwan also alerted WHO.
On January 7, officials announced they had identified a new virus and quickly after that indications of spread outside China and death related figures were confirmed.
It was quite shocking that on 14 January, WHO put out a tweet citing preliminary Chinese studies finding “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”. It was issued on the same day the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, gave a press briefing in Geneva warning of precisely the opposite; the potential for rapid spread.
On 22 January, the WHO emergency committee convened to make a pivotal decision on whether to advise the organisation to send a formal red alert for the world.
It did not happen as they were split, so they delayed a week in the hope new data might create a consensus. China argued against declaring an emergency but could not have carried the argument alone. An international health emergency was declared a week later, on 30 January.
Tedros, Director-General of WHO tirelessly praised China and Xi leadership, hailing Beijing’s transparency despite the critical early weeks when the authorities tried to cover up the extent of the problem in Wuhan.
Here comes my main blame for WHO.
As usual such diplomatic flattery was the price of ensuring Chinese cooperation with information and WHO site visits. Tedros also complimented Trump in a March 23 tweet, claiming he was doing “a great job in the fight against Covid-19”.
WHO primary care should be saving life and not exercising undue diplomacy, when diplomacy here means lack of transparency in relaying medical information about a pandemic to the world. In such existential crisis public relation should not take center stage.
WHO has been continuously using the numbers issued by countries as confirmed data without any reflection or analysis.
It disregarded the mass graves in Iran, accepted that Syria did not register any cases, agreed to the small numbers of infection in Africa, and much more.
They do not point that these numbers are flawed because testing is not available or implemented or that some governments are repressing the broadcasting of information.
They do not take into account or point out that in some countries old people just die at home without being included in death rates.
People consider WHO as an authority and accept the numbers issued as Bible or Koran. The result is that in many countries and Lebanon is a good example, the line is ''we are doing better than Europe and the US''. It is nice to believe we are doing better than countries considered as 'more advanced'.
In reality the numbers and rates are flawed as democratic countries respect access to information, and countries such as Germany and Austria have been testing to a very high percentage of the population.
The problem in accepting WHO numbers without analysis, gives the citizens of countries that do not test or censure results, a false sense of safety which could lead to high unreported death rates and a possibility of increasing the life of the pandemic.
What will happen when the crisis is supposedly contained in Europe and the US while the rest of the world has no proper evaluation of infection rates?
New walls and self isolation of whole countries or region?
It is the role of the WHO to take preventive measures at all levels, and it is not happening.
Yet, away from the trend of demonizing everything Trump says or does, we need to take a look at the WHO and China.
From what I read and observed in various countries, the WHO is not beyond blame.
Timeline of Covid-19 spread from China to the world
The Guardian-the inside story of the WHO's response to coronavirus
By end December the WHO received indications from China of several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people. Taiwan also alerted WHO.
On January 7, officials announced they had identified a new virus and quickly after that indications of spread outside China and death related figures were confirmed.
It was quite shocking that on 14 January, WHO put out a tweet citing preliminary Chinese studies finding “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”. It was issued on the same day the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, gave a press briefing in Geneva warning of precisely the opposite; the potential for rapid spread.
On 22 January, the WHO emergency committee convened to make a pivotal decision on whether to advise the organisation to send a formal red alert for the world.
It did not happen as they were split, so they delayed a week in the hope new data might create a consensus. China argued against declaring an emergency but could not have carried the argument alone. An international health emergency was declared a week later, on 30 January.
Tedros, Director-General of WHO tirelessly praised China and Xi leadership, hailing Beijing’s transparency despite the critical early weeks when the authorities tried to cover up the extent of the problem in Wuhan.
Here comes my main blame for WHO.
As usual such diplomatic flattery was the price of ensuring Chinese cooperation with information and WHO site visits. Tedros also complimented Trump in a March 23 tweet, claiming he was doing “a great job in the fight against Covid-19”.
WHO primary care should be saving life and not exercising undue diplomacy, when diplomacy here means lack of transparency in relaying medical information about a pandemic to the world. In such existential crisis public relation should not take center stage.
WHO has been continuously using the numbers issued by countries as confirmed data without any reflection or analysis.
It disregarded the mass graves in Iran, accepted that Syria did not register any cases, agreed to the small numbers of infection in Africa, and much more.
They do not point that these numbers are flawed because testing is not available or implemented or that some governments are repressing the broadcasting of information.
They do not take into account or point out that in some countries old people just die at home without being included in death rates.
People consider WHO as an authority and accept the numbers issued as Bible or Koran. The result is that in many countries and Lebanon is a good example, the line is ''we are doing better than Europe and the US''. It is nice to believe we are doing better than countries considered as 'more advanced'.
In reality the numbers and rates are flawed as democratic countries respect access to information, and countries such as Germany and Austria have been testing to a very high percentage of the population.
The problem in accepting WHO numbers without analysis, gives the citizens of countries that do not test or censure results, a false sense of safety which could lead to high unreported death rates and a possibility of increasing the life of the pandemic.
What will happen when the crisis is supposedly contained in Europe and the US while the rest of the world has no proper evaluation of infection rates?
New walls and self isolation of whole countries or region?
It is the role of the WHO to take preventive measures at all levels, and it is not happening.
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