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Of all the countries the US pays half. Of institutional donors Bill Gates pays 10% of it.
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Trump halts World Health Organization funding
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would halt funding to the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic while his administration reviews its response to the global crisis.
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U.S. notifies UN of withdrawal from World Health Organization
The Associated Press · Posted: Jul 07, 2020 4:20 PM ET | Last Updated: July 7
The Trump administration has formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, although the pullout won't take effect until next year, meaning it could be rescinded under a new administration or if circumstances change. Former U.S. vice-president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said he would reverse the decision on his first day in office if elected.
The withdrawal notification, delivered on Monday, makes good on U.S. President Donald Trump's vow in late May to terminate U.S. participation in the WHO, which he has harshly criticized for its response to the coronavirus pandemic and accused of bowing to Chinese influence.
The move was immediately assailed by health officials and critics of the administration, including numerous Democrats who said it would cost the U.S. influence in the global arena.
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"This is definitely not an attack on the WHO. It's a scientific debate, but we felt we needed to go public because they were refusing to hear the evidence after many conversations with them,"
For months, the WHO has insisted that Covid-19 is transmitted via droplets emitted when people cough or sneeze. Droplets that do not linger in the air, but fall onto surfaces - that's why handwashing has been identified as a key prevention measure.
But 239 scientists from 32 countries don't agree: they say there is also strong evidence to suggest the virus can also spread in the air: through much tinier particles that float around for hours after people talk, or breathe out.
Today the WHO admitted there was evidence to suggest this was possible in specific settings, such as enclosed and crowded spaces.
That evidence will have to be thoroughly evaluated, but if it is confirmed, the advice on how to prevent the virus spreading may have to change, and could lead to more widespread use of masks, and more rigorous distancing, especially in bars, restaurants, and on public transport.
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When the coronavirus emerged in China in January, the World Health Organization didn’t flinch in its advice: Do not restrict travel. But what is now clear is that the policy was about politics and economics more than public health.
Public health records, scores of scientific studies and interviews with more than two dozen experts show the policy of unobstructed travel was never based on hard science. It was a political decision, recast as health advice, which emerged after a plague outbreak in India in the 1990s. By the time Covid-19 surfaced, it had become an article of faith.
“It’s part of the religion of global health: Travel and trade restrictions are bad,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University who helped write the global rules known as the International Health Regulations. “I’m one of the congregants.”
Covid-19 has shattered that faith. Before the pandemic, a few studies had demonstrated that travel restrictions delayed, but did not stop, the spread of SARS, pandemic flu and Ebola. Most, however, were based on mathematical models. No one had collected real-world data. The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the latest coronavirus is still not understood.
“Anyone who is truthful is going to tell you it’s a big fat ‘We don’t know,’” said Prof. Keiji Fukuda, a former senior World Health Organization official who teaches at the University of Hong Kong.
Not knowing is especially vexing as the world seeks a way back to normalcy. For months, national leaders have invoked travel restrictions that vary in strictness and are often contradictory. Some shut their borders and simultaneously imposed domestic lockdowns, others required tests and quarantines. Many regularly revised their lists of risky destinations, sometimes responding tit for tat when their citizens were denied entry.
The restrictions have humbled powerful nations like the United States, whose citizens are no longer welcome across most of the world. Even so, President Trump has called his travel restrictions “the biggest decision we made so far” and attacked the W.H.O.’s early advice on borders as “disastrous.”
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has changed its advice on face masks, saying they should be worn in public where social distancing is not possible to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
The global body said new information showed they could provide "a barrier for potentially infectious droplets".
Some countries already recommend or mandate face coverings in public.
The WHO had previously argued there was not enough evidence to say that healthy people should wear masks.
However, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that "in light of evolving evidence, the WHO advises that governments should encourage the general public to wear masks where there is widespread transmission and physical distancing is difficult, such as on public transport, in shops or in other confined or crowded environments".
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Trump expands battle with WHO far beyond aid suspension
Washington Post
By John Hudson, Josh Dawsey and Souad Mekhennet
April 25, 2020 at 6:25 PM EDT
"Last week, the president announced a 60-day hold on U.S. money to the WHO, but other steps by his top officials go beyond a temporary funding freeze, raising concerns about the permanent weakening of the organization amid a rapidly spreading crisis.
At the State Department, officials are stripping references to the WHO from virus fact sheets, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has instructed his employees to “cut out the middleman” when it comes to public health initiatives the United States previously supported through the WHO.
The United States will now attempt to reroute the WHO funds to nongovernmental organizations involved in public health, according to interviews with U.S. officials and an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post.
“The Secretary has asked the State Department and USAID to identify and utilize alternative implementers for foreign assistance programs beyond the WHO,” read a memo sent to State Department employees in recent days.
The White House is imploring allies to question the organization’s credibility and push claims that its employees routinely go on excessive “luxury travel,” as one White House official, Sarah Makin-Acciani, said in a recent phone call."
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