The President of the U.S, Donald Trump, blamed WHO for missed the call on COVID-19, while he played down the memos from Navarro. (Image via Deadline)

U.S threatens to stop WHO funding

On Tuesday, the U.S President, Donald Trump, rebuked the World Health Organization (WHO), threatening that the country will freeze the funding for the WHO. Trump said that the WHO “missed the call” on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Actually, the WHO was not fully to blame. Trump played down the release of late January memos from Peter Navarro, reminding him of a possible COVID-19 pandemic. He said that he did not see them at that time.

Navarro warned Trump that the COVID-19 would put lives at risk of illness or death and cost the U.S trillions of dollars.

However, after the pandemic had been spreading in the country, Trump went Old Testament on WHO. When in his anger Trump said that he would cut the funding for WHO, the president took his word back and replaced it with “strongly consider”.

Trump said that while the WHO had called the pandemic wrong, the organization was accused of being too “China-centric”. The POTUS was referring to the time when WHO praised China’s effort and transparency to minimize the severity of COVID-19.

During his reign, the POTUS has voiced skepticism toward many organizations, and WHO is one of which. In February 2020, Trump called for cutting the U.S funding for WHO by more than half, from US$122.6 million to just US$57.9 million.

Health experts estimated that the weekly mortality rate will reach a new height in the U.S. Currently, at least 12,000 had died due to COVID-19.

Vice President Mike Pence, said that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will issue a new set of guidelines this week for asymptomatic people with potential exposure going back to work.

Source: https://bit.ly/2XhX5In