What the world is saying about Trump's WHO freeze

Take an exclusive look at the latest issue of The Week [View this email in your browser]( Dear newsletter reader, We thought you'd appreciate this special preview from the latest issue of The Week magazine, where you’ll find everything you need to know about the most important stories in news, business, technology, and culture. Today's preview comes from the Best columns: International section. If you like what you read you can [try 6 Risk-Free issues of The Week](. How they see us: Is Trump right to blame the WHO? Donald Trump has found a scapegoat for his botched handling of the coronavirus, said the Global Times (China) in an editorial. The U.S. president has been on a tear against the World Health Organization in recent weeks, accusing the respected international body of being "China-centric" and too slow to raise the alarm about the pandemic. His administration is now threatening to cut the $450 billion the U.S. gives the agency each year. But the idea that WHO responded too slowly is nonsense. The organization began warning the world about the threat from Covid-19 in early January, after Chinese authorities gave it timely information about the disease's spread in the city of Wuhan. On Jan. 30, WHO declared an international public health emergency. But Trump waited until March 13 to announce a national emergency in the U.S., and he has ordered none of the WHO-recommended measures that have helped China and other nations contain the virus: mass testing, tracing the contacts of the infected, isolating the sick. As a result, some 600,000 Americans have been infected with Covid-19 and more than 25,000 have died. It's not WHO's fault that "the U.S. response to the pandemic is among the worst in the world." Trump is right to be angry, said the Bangkok Post (Thailand). WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has heaped praise on Beijing, saying its lockdown of Wuhan "bought time for the world." What Tedros — a former Ethiopian health minister and China's nominee for the top WHO job — fails to mention is that Beijing's "initial handling of the outbreak was plagued with secrecy and delays." The country detected the first Covid-19 infections in November but silenced whistleblowers and only alerted WHO "to several cases of the unknown pneumonia in Wuhan on Dec. 31." Even as the disease spread abroad, Beijing and WHO insisted for weeks that "there was no human-to-human transmission." The agency even took China's side in its feud with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, said Charlie Moore in the Daily Mail (U.K.). Taiwan saw the pandemic coming and was among the first countries to implement social distancing. That's why the island has seen a mere 400 cases and six deaths. But WHO, "pandering to China, kept Taiwan cut off from global information networks" and refused to publicize its success. Sure, WHO is not perfect, said Sean O'Grady in [Independent.co.uk](. But it has "probably been more right than wrong," especially in its admonition to "test, test, test." And during a pandemic, it takes a global health agency to coordinate a global response. As the coronavirus spreads to poor developing countries, WHO will need rich countries' support and funding to contain and eradicate this disease. We are all on this planet together, and no country will be safe from this virus as long as even one nation harbors it. [Try 6 Risk-Free issues of The Week]( Copyright © 2020 The Week Publications, Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up for newsletters from The Week. Our mailing address is: The Week Publications, Inc 155 E 44th St Fl 22New York, NY 10017-4100 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.