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WASHINGTON – Repeating the skeptical tone he has applied to the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, President Trump accused the World Health Organization of helping China to hide the number of citizens who have been infected with the coronavirus .
“I think they knew that,” the president said at the coronavirus task force briefing on Friday, suggesting that the WHO knew that China was not being honest about the extent of COVID-19 infections. “But they didn’t want to tell the world. And we’re going to get to the bottom.”
Trump did not provide evidence to support his claim, but made it clear that the international public health organization will continue to be a primary target in the coming days. “We are going to talk about WHO next week in great detail. I didn’t want to do it today, Good Friday. I didn’t want to do it before Easter, and I didn’t want to do it before we have all the facts, either,” he said.
Friday’s comments came during a week in which Trump has repeatedly blamed the WHO for mishandling the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, he said the WHO was “very biased towards China.”
Trump has said he wants to suspend US funding to the WHO, although it is unclear when or how he intends to do so (Congress appropriates the funds). The United States contributed $ 893 million to WHO for its current two-year financing period, while China’s last contribution was $ 86 million.
“We pay them more than 10 times more than China,” said the president. “And they are very, very focused on China.”
The source of Trump’s irritation appears to be that the WHO did not approve his restriction on travel from China to the United States, which he implemented on January 31. Four days before that, a WHO guide advised against “unnecessary restrictions on international traffic.” “
More broadly, the president appears to be upset that WHO generally praised China’s response to the pandemic, which originated within its borders, in the southeastern city of Wuhan. The praise for China has been truly abundant from WHO officials. Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist who led the WHO team in China, told Yahoo News that if he became infected with the coronavirus, he would seek treatment in China.
Source: Yahoo News
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