How WHO Became China’s Coronavirus Accomplice

foreignpolicy.com

8 points·omgwtfbyobbq··3 comments

An item on page 3 of the current edition (No. 1519) of Private Eye in the UK and headlined "Money talks" touches on this.

The article ends with this paragraph: "WHO's kow-towing might just be related to its own precarious financial position, which makes it increasingly reliant on Beijing. Recent figures show that the US, nominally WHO's largest funder, is late with its two latest annual fees, owing almost $100m as part of a general withholding and delaying of payments to UN agencies. China, second-largest contributor, is more reliable."

Edit to add: Private Eye is a fortnightly news magazine, bitingly satirical in parts, and renowned for its dogged campaigning. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye

WHO is hilarious. They told us only what we already knew. For instance, they told the world that there was a pandemic only when everyone knew the pandemic was happening. I mean, what's the use of WHO if it couldn't even forecast something so obvious?

No wonder a meme is WHO cares.

The WHO is a coordinating body. They don't exist to tell anyone anything new. They didn't "tell the world that there was a pandemic". They formally declared that the pandemic fulfilled the criteria to be officially recognized as such. Maybe you don't see any use in that, but someone who needs to plan for the event of a pandemic probably appreciates it that they can simply write "if the WHO declares a pandemic" and rest assured that this will happen if and only if there's actually a pandemic.

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