US officials at WHO gave Trump 'real-time information' on coronavirus, report undercuts White House claims
A group of US officials and health experts working at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) "transmitted real-time information" about the coronavirus pandemic as it emerged to the Trump administration, according to reports.
The US officials include over a dozen researchers, physicians, and public health experts, with a majority from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"(They) were working full time at the Geneva headquarters of the WHO as the novel coronavirus emerged late last year and transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration," claims the Washington Post report.
According to the report, several CDC experts regularly work at the WHO in Geneva "as part of a rotation that has operated for years". As the COVID-19 outbreak unfolded, senior health officials, who were appointed by President Donald Trump, also consulted regularly at the highest levels with the WHO, officials told the Post.
"The presence of so many US officials undercuts President Donald Trump's assertion that the WHOs failure to communicate the extent of the threat, born of a desire to protect China, is largely responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in the US," says the report.
A spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Caitlin Oakley, confirmed in a statement to the Post that 17 staff members from HHS, including 16 from the CDC, were working at the WHO during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in January.
She said they were working on many programs, including the COVID-19 and Ebola. She added that the US officials who were working at WHO "were not the decision-makers".
"Furthermore, I'd add that just because you have Americans embedded in WHO providing technical assistance does not change the information you are getting from WHO leadership. We have learned now that WHO information was incorrect and relied too heavily on China,” Oakley told the Post.
"Questioning why the WHO did not press China harder," she said that "the lack of transparency aided and abided by WHO leadership hampered understanding of the virus and delayed the global response," according to the Post article.
Dr David Nabarro, a WHO special envoy, told NBC's 'Meet the Press' recently that the WHO has to "work with the information we get." He said the WHO does not have the power to go and inspect beyond what countries tell the Organization.
"But I say this, that they (China) did invite a team pulled together by the WHO, to come and inspect everything in mid-February. There were no restrictions on what that team investigated. It included American experts as well as experts from others in the world."
"So we are trying to be clear to everybody that we have been given access to the information we requested. And so, therefore, I don't like, at any time, to say we don't believe. We believe what we've got. We work with what we've got. That's how we operate in the WHO," said Nabarro.
What Trump said regarding WHO?
Trump recently announced that he is halting funding to the WHO while his administration reviews the organization's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. "Today, I'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the WHO while a review is conducted to assess the WHO's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what's going on there," he said during a briefing on April 14.
Trump said that American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million each year to the WHO. "In contrast, China contributes roughly $40 million a year, and even less."
He continued, "As the organization's leading sponsor, the US has a duty to insist on full accountability, one of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations."
"They were very much opposed to what we did. Fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China, saving untold numbers of lives. Thousands and thousands of people would have died," Trump added.
Trump blamed the WHO for failing to share information regarding the COVID-19 outbreak in a timely and transparent manner.
"With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible. The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion," he said.
Trump accused the WHO of failing in its basic duty and said the Organization must be held accountable. "It's time after all of these decades. The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts."
"There was credible information to suspect human-to-human transmission in December 2019, which should have spurred the WHO to investigate and investigate immediately. Through the middle of January, it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was no human-to-human transmission happening despite reports and clear evidence to the contrary," said Trump.
The President also said that the delays the WHO experienced in declaring a public health emergency cost valuable time. Trump said had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and "to call out China's lack of transparency," the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death.
"This would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide economic damage. Instead, the WHO willingly took China's assurances to face value and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency... The WHO’s reliance on China’s disclosures likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that," he said.