What are President Trump's charges against the WHO?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52294623

US President Donald Trump says the World Health Organization (WHO) has mismanaged and helped to cover up the spread of the coronavirus after it emerged in China.

But the WHO has defended its handling of the early stages of the pandemic.

We've been looking at some of the charges President Trump has levelled against the WHO.

Claim 4

"One of the most dangerous decisions... from the WHO was... to oppose travel restrictions. They actually fought us."

The US restricted travel from China and other countries from 2 February.

But there is no record of the WHO publicly criticising this move.

And it would have been highly unusual for it to do so.

 

Trump's claim he takes hydroxychloroquine prompts warnings from health experts

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/media-health-experts-reactions-trump-taking-hydroxychloroquine

The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine can cause heart rhythm problems and other side effects. The Food and Drug Administration has said hydroxychloroquine should only be used for coronavirus in formal studies.

Two large observational studies, each involving around 1,400 patients in New York, recently found no benefit from the drug. Two new studies published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ reached the same conclusion.

 

Fox News can't get its message straight on hydroxychloroquine

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/media/fox-news-hydroxychloroquine-reliable-sources/index.html

That was one side of the Fox News coin. The other painted a starkly different picture. On Tucker Carlson's program, Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel hyped the drug and said the media was going to "politicize" the issue. "I think it's reasonable," Siegel said of Trump taking it. In the next hour, Sean Hannity also attacked the news media, saying "predictably the mob in the media are hyperventilating" over Trump's announcement. Hannity decried journalists who he said have been "waging an unhinged, non-stop never-ending PR campaign against" the drug.

 

And in the 10pm hour, Laura Ingraham, who has been one of the top promoters of hydroxychloroquine, asked, "Why is the media freaking out about the President taking hydroxy?" She said the "medical establishment went crazy" over his announcement, playing clips of doctors on CNN and MSNBC while ignoring what Fox's own coverage just a few hours before.

The contradictory coverage from Fox News isn't unprecedented. But it continues to be remarkable that on a basic issue of health and safety, one in which Ingraham even acknowledged that the medical establishment is in general agreement on, Fox News can't get its message straight...

 

 

Trump himself tweeted, "[Fox News] is no longer the same. We miss the great Roger Ailes. You have more anti-Trump people, by far, than ever before. Looking for a new outlet!" Of course, Fox News has over the years become more pro-Trump, not less supportive.

>> Paul Farhi's point: "The 'great' Roger Ailes was credibly accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. He was fired by Rupert Murdoch and sons for his alleged behavior. He died in disgrace in 2017..."

 

Facial recognition helps reunite kidnapped toddler with family after 32 years

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/asia/china-kidnapped-son-reunited-intl-hnk/index.html

 

There is no official tally on how many children are kidnapped in China each year. On the website "Baby Come Home," a widely-used platform for Chinese parents to post missing child notices, more than 51,000 registered families are searching for their children.

According to Xinhua, police have found and reunited more than 6,300 abducted children with their families since the Ministry of Public Security set up a nationwide DNA database in 2009 to match parents with missing children.

Trump, Flynn and Barr: A Corruption Update

Taiwan Says It Tried to Warn the World About Coronavirus. Here’s What It Really Knew and When

https://time.com/5826025/taiwan-who-trump-coronavirus-covid19/

 

When they heard about patients falling sick with a mysterious pneumonia in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Dec. 31, Taiwan’s health officials fired off an email to the World Health Organization asking for more information.

This four-sentence inquiry has since become fodder for the political brawl between China and the U.S. and threatens to bruise the reputation of the U.N.’s health agency as it leads the fight against an unprecedented global pandemic.

Taiwanese and U.S. officials have seized on the email to argue the WHO ignored an early warning that the coronavirus could likely be transmitted between people. In the weeks following the Dec. 31 note, the WHO echoed Chinese officials that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”— even as cases began cropping up that raised suspicion of contagion.

In an interview with TIME, Dr. Lo Yi-chun, the deputy director-general of Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), says the WHO should have acted on Taiwan’s query by conducting its own investigation. Instead, he says the WHO “provided a false sense of security to the world.”

The WHO has defended its handling of the outbreak and says it relies on member countries like China to accurately report their findings. It also notes that Taiwan’s email did not explicitly mention human-to-human transmission, and that the self-governing island was not the first nor the only one to contact the organization about the disease.

 

Trump Says He Fired Inspector General Because He Was Appointed by Obama: We Should 'Get Rid' of Obama IGs

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-he-fired-inspector-general-because-he-was-appointed-obama-we-should-get-rid-obama-1504931

Pompeo told The Washington Post earlier today that he urged Linick's firing because the IG was "undermining" the agency's mission by failing to act in ways to improve the State Department, but declined to mention any specifics. "I went to the president and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn't performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to," he said, "that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he's supposed to be doing."

 

The Secretary of State's remarks came after Trump faced days of criticism from both sides of the aisle over his decision to dismiss Linick on Friday evening. It was the president's fourth watchdog dismissal in recent weeks. Trump told reporters on Monday that he followed Pompeo's suggestion because he has long supported firing IGs appointed by Obama.

Israel lifts mask requirement in classrooms, open spaces due to heat

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/SykWskWoU

The Israel Pediatric Association on Monday said that school children should not be forced to wear face masks during the hot days of summer despite health regulations meant to prevent coronavirus infections.

In the statement, the pediatrics association urged the health and education ministries to revoke the Health Ministry order in the wake of the unusual heatwave that hit the country on Sunday.

"During this current heatwave, requiring children to wear masks for long hours is impractical and a significant burden, masks that get wet from sweat will become ineffective," read the statement. "Therefore, we believe children should be exempt from wearing masks until this heatwave ends."

According to the association's experts, the effectiveness of face masks in preventing coronavirus spread among children is unclear and there is no evidence in the scientific literature to support the Health Ministry's claims.

TV: Ministers say Litzman ‘lying’ about having warned virus policy was excessive

https://www.timesofisrael.com/tv-ministers-say-litzman-lying-about-warning-virus-policy-was-excessive/

Ministers reportedly rebuked outgoing Health Minister Yaakov Litzman on Monday, saying he was “lying” when claiming he had spoken out against the “exaggerated” policies of the ministry’s director-general during the coronavirus outbreak.

Litzman on Sunday accused the government of overreacting in its response to the pandemic, aiming his criticism squarely at the outgoing director of his office, Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, who resigned last week.

Furious Fox host LOSES IT on Trump after he announces he’s taking hydroxychloroquine

Trump says he's taking hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Gupta says he shouldn't

Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52717161

 

US President Donald Trump has said he is taking hydroxychloroquine to ward off coronavirus.

Speaking at the White House, he told reporters he started taking the malaria and lupus medication recently.

"I'm taking it for about a week and a half now and I'm still here, I'm still here," he said.

Pompeo says he asked for inspector general to be fired because he was 'undermining' the State Department

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/pompeo-inspector-general-firing-explanation/index.html

 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told The Washington Post on Monday that he had recommended that State Department Inspector General Steve Linick be fired because the independent watchdog was "undermining" the department and wasn't performing in a way that the top US diplomat wanted him to.

"I went to the President and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn't performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he's supposed to be doing," he said in an interview with the Post. "The kinds of activities he's supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us."

He did not go into details about what specifically displeased him about Linick's job performance.

Eric Trump's wild, dangerous coronavirus conspiracy theory

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/eric-trump-donald-trump-coronavirus/index.html

So the reason that states with Democratic governors are slowly reopening after stay-at-home orders over the past few months is not to avoid a second surge in the coronavirus (as infectious disease experts worry could happen) but rather to keep President Donald Trump from holding campaign rallies?

But suggesting that Democratic governors are keeping their states from fully reopening to stop his dad's rallies wasn't even the most controversial thing that Eric Trump said!

That title goes to this line: "After November 3, coronavirus, will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen."

WHAT? To believe that, you must believe that every governor of a state that is not fully reopened is covering up the fact that coronavirus is, in fact, not all that bad in their state. And they are doing this solely to keep Donald Trump from holding rallies. Or something.

 Here's how Pirro responded to Eric Trump's conspiracy theory: "I mean, it's clearly -- it's no longer, you know, for a while it was about the science and the non-believers and all of that, but it's right down the middle in terms of left and right." Uh huh.)

If you don't think this stuff is dangerous, you aren't paying attention.