Trump threatens to cut off World Health Organization unless they join his blame China campaign [View all]

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Trump threatens to cut off World Health Organization unless they join his blame China campaign

May 19, 2020 9:08am 

by Mark Sumner, Daily Kos Staff

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/19/1946112/-Trump-threatens-to-cut-off-World-Health-Organization-unless-they-join-his-blame-China-campaign

"SNIP......

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has run up a worldwide death toll of over 320,000, but it has some distance to go before it matches the incredible count of smallpox. In the 20th century alone, smallpox is estimated to have killed 300 million people. In the last hundred years of its existence, smallpox killed half a billion people, until it was eliminated in October 1977 … by a massive global effort organized and operated by the World Health Organization.

Removing from the Earth a scourge that had literally plagued humankind going back into prehistory might be the single greatest accomplishment of WHO. It might also be the single greatest accomplishment of any organization. But it’s not all that WHO has achieved since it was founded in 1948. WHO has also been instrumental in bringing polio to near eradication, in the fight against HIV/AIDS, in developing a vaccine for Ebola, and in the ongoing fight against both tuberculosis and malaria. And even that is only a fraction of the good that WHO does for global health. So naturally, Donald Trump is threatening to destroy this vital instrument of global health as he searches for a scapegoat for his own failures by withdrawing U.S. support “permanently.”

The three countries where COVID-19 cases are growing the fastest are the United States, Brazil, and Russia. In other words—Trump, Bolsonaro, and Putin. The Axis of Ego.

But Donald Trump’s failure remains absolutely singular. The United States, with 4% of the world’s population, has 30% of the world’s known cases of COVID-19, along with 30% of the deaths. Trump continues to give himself top marks by comparing the number of American deaths to the horrific totals that might have been wrung up had government at all levels done absolutely nothing. But compared to the actions taken by almost any leader anywhere, Trump has generated an unmatched failure—one that is all too visible.

.....SNIP"