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Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

nytimes.com

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Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#111

Post by bathtub365 »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #97
possibleworlds wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, this move is 100% Trump deflecting attention from the narrative of his own mis-management. He doesn't care about WHO, he probably didn't even know it existed until a few weeks ago.

Also, this move is 100% Trump deflecting attention from the narrative of his own mis-management. He doesn't care about WHO, he probably didn't even know it existed until a few weeks ago. Trump is an imbecile, and at best a useful idiot for Big Business, but that doesn't take away that the WHO has lost all credibility given how they have conducted themselves thus far. So, if nothing else I'm willing to say that he has…

It doesn’t seem like the best time to try to totally dismantle it.

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#112

Post by simonh »

0xy wrote: post #6
wazokazi wrote: post #2

Could this not have waited a few months? In the middle of an pandemic, to cut off funding to the only organization that is coordinating the global response is just crazy. The pettiness of this administration seems to know no bounds. Even if we accept that WHO screwed up in their early response and yeah they could be critical of China, cutting funding is wildly disproportionate reaction. China will offcourse make up t…

Why do you think that the WHO bears no responsibility for spreading misinformation? Often times they simply repeat CCP propaganda verbatim, arguably worsening the crisis. Then there's the flagrant lies about masks, calling travel bans ineffective then scrambling to change tone, delaying declarations of status, etc etc. https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152 The WHO also isn't really doing anything on the…

The WHO team was instrumental in getting the Chinese to report accurate infection rates, within 2 days of them arriving in country the reporting system was completely overhauled and they started reporting clinically diagnosed cases as well as positive tests at a time when testing capacity was minimal. This was a crucial contribution in illuminating the scale of the outbreak early on. Before that they, like everyone else, was almost entirely dependent on information from the Chinese government.

The WHO had developed a test kit, was distributing it and was helping countries ramp up production at a time when the US was making a complete mess of testing. Many third world countries are heavily dependent on WHO expertise and support. This move is a knife in their backs.

Honestly, who has the best track record of tackling this issue and taking it seriously. The WHO, or a man who was calling it a hoax 6 weeks after the WHO had alerted of possible international transmission?

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#113

Post by jki275 »

simonh wrote: post #110
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The WHO did not make the problem worse, because their statement just said that no human-human link was found yet Not true. Taiwan had already warned them of human to human transmission in December. The WHO's failure to report it has cost the world many lives and a great deal of suffering: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/03/25/2...

This is true, absolutely, but had no material effect on the world's ability to respond to the situation. Suppose they had reported possible human transmission in December, instead of early January, would that have made any difference to Trump calling it a hoax on February 28?

> Trump calling it a hoax on February 28?

cite please.

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#114

Post by JeremyNT »

MR4D wrote: post #47
simonh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to make changes in the WHO fine, you contribute a major share if it’s funding, you should get a commensurate say, but de-funding right now at the height of the crisis is ludicrously reckless and irresponsible. Are you really going to argue this move right now is in the best interests of the USA and the world? From a life long Conservative voter here in the UK, this is serious. Get a grip. I never thought…

Why is it reckless? The WHO has arguably made the problem worse. Wouldn’t you want to defund any organization that makes a problem worse?

> Why is it reckless? The WHO has arguably made the problem worse.

Ah, this is a typical conservative response. "The government responded ineffectively!" they will say, to which the only possible response is to simply start dismantling government institutions and replace them with their corporate friends.

Then, when the next crisis occurs, and the even further weakened public institutions struggle to respond, they can remind us that they were right all along - it is the institutions that have failed us! Etc etc, into the downward spiral.

"Starve the beast" is not a strategy that can possibly result in reform, and I have trouble believing that anybody advocating it believes it in good faith.

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#115

Post by newen »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #48
Fjolsvith wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates' father was a pal of Soros and Fauci. https://www.trendsmap.com/twitter/tweet/1248480455826870282

[flagged]

Democrats have the Russiagate conspiracy theory, which is spread by almost all US news media... So Republicans are not the only ones that engage in conspiracy theories.

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#116

Post by thu2111 »

henearkr wrote: post #29
Darmody wrote: post #7

The WHO is a joke. What they did these last months should be the last nail in the coffin. More like a health organization they act like a political one taking sides with China and ignoring/censoring Taiwan even if they managed to control de spread of the virus.[1][2] And if that wasn't enough, they actively insisted that all the measures we're taking now were pointless. Why would anyone want a health organization tha…

Given the weight of US in UNO, why would they want to stop their funding, instead of pushing for a reform of WHO? Of course everybody benefits from the existence of an organ like WHO, the only problems would be the number and quality of its experts network and labs. And to reform that, that's in the opposite direction of stopping funds...

Of course everybody benefits from the existence of an organ like WHO

Why? Does it do anything beyond encourage groupthink? What does it do that other organisations cannot?

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#117

Post by trobertson »

simonh wrote: post #112
0xy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that the WHO bears no responsibility for spreading misinformation? Often times they simply repeat CCP propaganda verbatim, arguably worsening the crisis. Then there's the flagrant lies about masks, calling travel bans ineffective then scrambling to change tone, delaying declarations of status, etc etc. https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152 The WHO also isn't really doing anything on the…

The WHO team was instrumental in getting the Chinese to report accurate infection rates, within 2 days of them arriving in country the reporting system was completely overhauled and they started reporting clinically diagnosed cases as well as positive tests at a time when testing capacity was minimal. This was a crucial contribution in illuminating the scale of the outbreak early on. Before that they, like everyone e…

> Honestly, who has the best track record of tackling this issue and taking it seriously.

Taiwan, who the WHO regularly denies exists.

South Korea, whose success and strategies have been ignored.

This crisis has shown us the true face of the WHO: a primarily political organization with occasional work in medicine.

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#118

Post by aeternum »

henearkr wrote: post #60
aeternum wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'As many tests as possible' is useless advice. Imagine if GDPR said companies should make data as secure as possible or NHTSA said make cars as safe as possible.

No it's a good advice. Because then that would have raised soon an acute awareness about asymptomatic bearers (e.g. through testing a representative sample of the general population), and thus awareness of the necessity of early lockdown. Also, being able to test anybody who asks it would have dismissed arbitrary criteria that are pushed by governments around the world to minimize the illness. For example in the coun…

I agree tests are useful, however the advice was not specific enough. The WHO should have specified how many tests are needed for various outcomes, offered early modeling, and facilitated information exchange to improve those models. Instead they simply played politics and offered very generalized and non-specific advice which overwhelmingly downplayed the risk.

Maybe a country has 1000 tests on hand, they test that first 1k people and can say they followed the WHO's advice. That's all that was possible given their immediate stock.

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#119

Post by Melting_Harps »

bathtub365 wrote: post #111
Melting_Harps wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, this move is 100% Trump deflecting attention from the narrative of his own mis-management. He doesn't care about WHO, he probably didn't even know it existed until a few weeks ago. Trump is an imbecile, and at best a useful idiot for Big Business, but that doesn't take away that the WHO has lost all credibility given how they have conducted themselves thus far. So, if nothing else I'm willing to say that he has…

It doesn’t seem like the best time to try to totally dismantle it.

Why not, we risk going back to the centralized pitfall once again if we don't right now; it won't be easy, but its very clear that the entire World is/will be falling into a deep recession, if not depression. I'd say if local manufacturing was ramped up then at least you could spur on local employment numbers.

Retraining people in this time is perhaps the most opportune as well as as they're confined at Home.

Also, I don't know how close you've been following the manufacturing of respirators or medical PPE in the US, but its like people finally realized 3d printers can be used for more than pointless affections and have been repurposed to be used for medical supplies equipment and tools and have brought out the best in what the 'maker space' could be under the guidance of actual Medical professionals.

There are guys on imgur who are reaching out to front liners to provide them with the equipment they can't get elsewhere at no cost.

Its a do or die situation for those so heavily reliant on them for medical supplies, quite literately, as untold deaths will go unaccounted for because China sent low quality or totally faulty equipment if it was even available to begin with. It will be brushed under the unavoidable cost of a pandemic--that has been made worse because the CCP censored, and disappeared anyone who sought to speak out on the severity of COVID19.

Which should have grave consequences internationally.

Re: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization

#120

Post by Fjolsvith »

evgen wrote: post #94
Fjolsvith wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any people died from those things.

The body count from those statements will probably be in the mid-100k or so. By instantly trying to politicise any criticism of his many failures Trump incited his moron followers to ignore the situation in the critical early weeks. States resisted shutdowns to score points with their cheetoh-fuhrer and that will end up killing thousands.

Show me a death certificate with the cause of death saying "Trump failure".
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