US SHUT DOWN G20 CORONAVIRUS STATEMENT OVER WHO BACKING: REPORTS

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US SHUT DOWN G20 CORONAVIRUS STATEMENT OVER WHO BACKING: REPORTS

Indeed, some experts argue that WHO's an apparent political slant against the likes of Israel and Taiwan even amid such a catastrophic global health calamity, summons further scrutiny – all while heaping praise on China, despite a growing body of evidence that the country's leadership tried to coverup the virus at the cost of countless lives and livelihoods worldwide.

Since the organization's inception more than 70 years ago, the US has been by far the largest donor, giving 10 times the amount of Beijing in support of international health programs and to avoid mass disease outbreaks. Washington is already said to be funneling WHO funds into other global health initiatives, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

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Yet budget data shows that of the total $6.27 billion in WHO financing, only $554 million – about 9 percent – went to the WHO Health Emergency Program and another $306 million to preventing and controlling outbreaks under the "Humanitarian Response Plans and Other Appeals" budget category. The organization is said to have spent some $200 million on business-class and five-star travel, even when employees were unauthorized to do so.

"The U.S. is the largest funder of the WHO. When an organization loses the confidence of its largest funder, the normal and best practice is for the head of that organization to step down, and for his replacement to propose a plan to reform the organization," contended Cliff May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). "That's what should happen now – before the U.S. decides whether or not to continue funding the WHO."

Among the missteps include: ignoring Taiwan's early warnings about the fast-multiplying virus, the now haunting January tweet that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel pathogen, not pushing China to immediately turn over genome sequencing of the virus so that test kits could be created abroad, encouraging countries not to close their borders despite the evident spread, and waiting until March 11 to succumb to international pressure and label it a pandemic.

Meanwhile, China announced Thursday that it would up its contributions by $30 million, lauding the global health body under Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus' governance as "actively fulfilling its duties and upholding an objective, scientific and impartial stance."

Similarly, the WHO has also declined to condemn China, instead widely praising Beijing for its actions to curb the coronavirus, while also maintaining that as an agency it, too, acted swiftly and appropriately, keeping the White House updated with "real-time" information.

On Friday, the United States – which has been hardest hit by the pandemic – passed the grim milestone of more than 50,000 deaths as a result of coronavirus. On a global scale, the illness has claimed the lives of more than 194,000 people.

"As some feared when the president announced he was considering suspending funding, China is seeking to twist the decision to their advantage by diverting attention from Beijing's harmful actions. Likewise, other WHO member states that the U.S. needs to reform the organization have negatively reacted to the announcement," Schaefer noted. "However, now that the decision is made, restoring funding would weaken U.S. demands for reform. The world must know that the U.S. is serious in its reform demands, and suspending funding is a part of that."