current event update: tuesday, may 19th

By Luca Adamo

On Sunday, President Donald Trump sent a letter to Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of the World Health Organization. 

In the letter, Trump details reasons for the April 14th funding cut, as well as findings from the following “investigation… of the organization's failed response to the COVID-19 outbreak”. The letter states that the investigation “Confirmed many of the serious concerns [President Trump] raised last month and identified others that the World Health Organization should have addressed, especially the World Health Organization’s alarming lack of independence from the People's Republic of China. 

In paraphrase, the letter asserts that the following is now known: 

President Trump expresses that the World Health Organization: 

• Consistently ignored credible reports of the Virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019. 
  

• Repeatedly-made claims about the coronavirus that were either inaccurate or misleading, including claims of lack of human-human transmission, not declaring the virus an emergency after reportedly being “pressure[d]” by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and praising the Chinese Government for “transparency” after the silencing and punishment of several doctors and Chinese institutions for speaking out about the virus, as well as ordering the destruction of 
  

• Failed to press China for the admittance of a World Health Organization team of international medical experts, resulting in a team arriving two weeks after WHO declared the virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30. In addition, the team was not allowed to visit Wuhan until the final days of admission, and two American members were denied access to Wuhan, which WHO was “silent” about 
  

• Praised China’s strict domestic travel restrictions, while against the closure of the United States border from people coming from China, stating that they were “causing more harm than good”, even after five million people left Wuhan, some of which bound for international destinations 
  

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• Declared the virus a pandemic after 4,000 people had been killed and more than 100,000 in at least 114 countries were infected. 
  

• Didn’t comment on the “discriminatory treatment” of Africans related to the pandemic in Guangzhou and other cities, while calling Taiwan's complaints of WHO mismanagement racist. 
  

President Trump then compared Dr. Tedros’ COVID-19 response to previous Director-General Dr. Haram Brundtland’s response to SARS in 2003, stating “many lives could have been saved if you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example.” Trump then The letter ended with “I can not allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America’s interest”.