My new column on "Trump’s Deadly Search for a Scapegoat." I Trump had just listened to WHO, rather than trying to destroy it, thousands of American lives could have been saved. nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opi…
Many Americans don't know much about WHO, so let me note that it's annual budget is less than some US hospital centers -- and with that, it fights TB, polio, Ebola, and of course coronavirus. When it fights Ebola in Congo, it is protecting Americans.
Yes, WHO is bureaucratic, timid, frustrating. It is too cozy with China, too hostile to Taiwan. It has made mistakes in its handling of Covid -- but it did a much better job than the Trump administration did (a low bar). It's also indispensable. No other agency can fill its role.
From late January through February, WHO was issuing urgent warnings about Covid-19. Trump ignored them and said the virus was "totally under control" and would "disappear." If he had just listened to WHO, he could have rolled out testing and gathered PPE to protect doctors.
Just consider testing as a measure of Trump's handling of the coronavirus vs WHO's. WHO rapidly developed a diagnostic Covid test and distributed it to countries all over the world. Meanwhile, the US bungled testing that we still can't get everyone tested.
Trump is right that WHO is too cozy with China. But Trump himself fawned over China's response. “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus,” Trump tweeted on Jan. 24. “I want to thank President Xi.”
If my tone sounds intemperate, it's because I've seen too many kids dying of malnutrition, too many moms dying in childbirth -- and, yes, too many people struggling to breathe in NYC hospitals. We need to fight this with every tool, not make scapegoats for a president's mistakes.
The bottom line: Trump's reckless effort to make WHO a scapegoat for his own failings will impede the effort against the pandemic, and more people are likely to die. Here's my column: nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opi…
