With the coronavirus pandemic raging around the world, it’s vital that a competent, transnational organization is able to gather vital statistics on the disease from every nation and track the progress of efforts to contain it.
Too bad we only have the WHO.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is failing. Not only are they failing in their primary responsibility to promote public health, but their inexplicable political gamesmanship is destroying their credibility.
And if no one believes what’s coming out of their headquarters in Geneva, what good are they?
Most noticeabe has been their tilt toward China, running international interference for Chinese coverups and bungling. They’ve already been caught in several embarrassing lies and, at times, appear more concerned with politically correct attitudes than they do dealing with the pandemic.
A reporter had asked officials about Beijing’s new policy to include asymptomatic coronavirus patients in the government’s overall coronavirus infection tally. The reporter also asked whether WHO has been “manipulated or taken for a ride” by accepting China’s data.
[WHO official Dr. Michael] Ryan rejected the premise of the reporter’s question, suggesting that governments around the globe are struggling to report accurate data because of the chaos caused by the pandemic.
“We need to be balanced in that and we need to recognize that systems under pressure find it hard to share everything on a minute-to-minute basis,” Ryan said.
“Frankly, at times I think we get over-focused on this issue.”
Why “balanced”? Where criticism is warranted, criticism should be delivered and balance has nothing to do with it. And the issue we get “over-focused” on is the truth. I guess that’s far down the list of priorities at the WHO.
And who wants information on a minute-to-minute basis? No one is asking for that. What we want are facts. And we’re getting precious little of those from China.
Senator Rick Scott of Florida is calling for an investigation into the WHO’s disinformation campaign on behalf of China.
“Everything coming out of China has been wrong, and the WHO has said they [the Chinese] have done a great job,” Scott said in the phone interview, adding that the United Nations entity “panders to China.”
“If the WHO had done its job, not as many people would be dead, we would be further along right now, and every country would be better off,” the Florida Republican told The Daily Signal.
Ryan also reminded us about racial profiling and singling out China.
“I think we need to be very careful also to not to be profiling certain parts of the world as being uncooperative or non-transparent, and we need to look at transparency across the board,” Ryan said at a Geneva press conference.
From what we know of China’s destroying inconvenient early research into the virus and covering up the extraordinary seriousness of the outbreak until they couldn’t hide it anymore, the words and actions of the WHO become even more incredible. A change in leadership is certainly called for, but it’s doubtful that will change anything about the current health crisis.
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