https://www.newsweek.com/who-funding-world-health-day-1496782
Trump—who has been widely criticized for initially dismissing the
threat of the novel coronavirus and failing to formulate a coherent
federal response—said Tuesday that the WHO "really blew it." The
president claims that the body was too slow to identify the threat of
the outbreak in China, where government officials sought to hide the
growing problem.
The WHO raised the alarm early on in the crisis, declaring a "public
health emergency of international concern" at the end of January, one
day before Health Secretary Alex Azar announced a public health
emergency, and weeks before Trump declared a national emergency. Almost a
month later, the president claimed on Twitter, "The Coronavirus is very
much under control in the USA."
The president's main issue with the WHO appeared to be that it did
not support his ban on some travel from China, introduced at the end of
January. At the time, the WHO warned that such methods are usually not
effective in containing pandemics, and that such a decision could divert
attention and resources from more important efforts.
The president later appeared to walk back his funding threat.
Responding to a reporter's question as to whether he would pull support
for the body, the president replied, "I'm not saying that I'm going to
do it. But we're going to look at it."
When he was told he had just said that funding would be withheld, the
president falsely claimed, "No, I didn't. I said we're going to look at
it."
