1/ Blame-shifting to the WHO isn’t tough to figure out:
1. It’s an international organization, which Americans are generally cool to and conservatives fervently hate
2. It’s weak. Blaming the governors is tricky (some have done quite well); blaming the media is absurd (reporters
1. It’s an international organization, which Americans are generally cool to and conservatives fervently hate
2. It’s weak. Blaming the governors is tricky (some have done quite well); blaming the media is absurd (reporters
2/ are responsible for corona?); calling it the ‘China virus’ risks Chinese PPE imports.
3. It’s a low-cost gimmick. Re-funding/re-joining will be easy. The US had a lot of the relevant epidemiological data without the WHO. Trump just ignored it.
4. The director-general is a
3. It’s a low-cost gimmick. Re-funding/re-joining will be easy. The US had a lot of the relevant epidemiological data without the WHO. Trump just ignored it.
4. The director-general is a
3/ non-white foreigner with a name hard to pronounce. One can only imagine what Trump has said in private about Tedros.
5. The WHO and Tedros genuinely deserve criticism for their early dealings with China on this. But remember theWHO is in an almost impossible position. It can’t
5. The WHO and Tedros genuinely deserve criticism for their early dealings with China on this. But remember theWHO is in an almost impossible position. It can’t
4/ muscle China. Lots of IOs are stuck with dictatorships distorting their work. This is bad, of course, but a well known issue. That’s why, for example, the US established that pandemic NSC unit under NSA Rice. Trump disbanded that, which was far more consequential than the WHO
