Following through on a threat he made earlier this month, President Donald Trump today announced that the United States will cut ties with the World Health Organization (WHO).
In other pandemic developments, Moscow nearly doubled its COVID-19 death total, following questions about its counting method
The global total today climbed to 5,885,490 cases, and at least 363,031 people have died from their infections, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard.
WHO announcement follows repeated criticisms
Trump made the announcement today at a Rose Garden media briefing where he took no questions afterward from the media. During his address today, he claimed that China has control over the WHO, while only paying $40 million a year compared with the US contribution of $450 million.
Over the past few months and amid others criticizing his own COVID-19 response, Trump has accused the WHO of being slow with its response and for not being tough enough on China in demanding more answers on the source of the virus. Trump's pressure on the WHO is also part of broader political tensions between the United States and China, though earlier in the outbreak, Trump praised China President Xi for his handling of the outbreak.
The issues came to a head about 2 weeks ago when Trump sent WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, a letter threatening to make US funding cuts permanent and reconsider participation in the body unless the WHO committed to "major substantive improvements" in the next 30 days.
Tedros has repeated at recent media briefings that he is considering the contents of the letter, and on May 19, the World Health Assembly passed a multipart resolution that included several COVID-19 issues, one of which was a call for an independent inquiry into the pandemic and for the WHO to investigate the source of the virus.
The WHO has no authority under International Health Regulations to do its own investigations within member countries, but China this month agreed with the need for an independent probe as soon as the pandemic threat is over. The agency has also vigorously pushed back against Trump's criticisms and has urged countries not to politicize the pandemic.
In April, Trump announced a freeze on US funds to the WHO, a significant development, given that the country is the WHO's biggest funder. Earlier this week, the WHO announced the creation of a new funding group called the WHO Foundation, which was 2 years in the making and designed to grow support from sources it hasn't tapped before to help support its global health activities and create more stable, flexible funding for its programs.
Sharp public health blowback
Trump's announcement today drew strong condemnation from many public health experts, who called the move unwise, especially in the middle of a pandemic. On Twitter, Tom Frieden, MD, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and president and chief executive officer of Resolve to Save Lives, said, "We helped create WHO. We are part of it. It is part of the world. Turning our back on WHO makes us and the world less safe."
The WHO, part of the United Nations, was established in 1948 and traces its roots to the Pan American Health Organization. As the leading health agency in the response to infectious diseases such as Ebola, malaria, and tuberculosis, it also works on noncommunicable diseases and other health issues, such as substance abuse. It relies on assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states.
Lawrence Gostin, JD, of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and Georgetown University Law Center, on Twitter today called Trump's US withdrawal announcement "unlawful and dangerous."
He said the move is unlawful, because the United States had treaty obligations under the WHO constitution and International Health Regulations and because the action requires Congress, which has already allocated funds. He said the step is dangerous, because the world is in the middle of a pandemic.
Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (publisher of CIDRAP News), said that today is a very sad day for the public's health. He said the WHO isn't perfect, but it plays a critical role in the world. "We will all pay a price down the road for this decision," he said. "An infectious disease anywhere in the world can be everywhere in the world."
He said he worries about the action's consequences on WHO funding, as well as the loss of in-kind support from US experts who work closely with the WHO and support its scientific and public health mission. "Their status is unclear," Osterholm said.
The president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), Thomas File, Jr, MD, also spoke out today on Trump's announcement in a statement sent to journalists. "As infectious diseases physicians on the front line of combating the current global crisis, we stand strongly against President Trump's decision to leave the World Health Organization," he said, adding that the pandemic shows that neither boundaries nor politics can protect against infectious disease spread.
"We will not succeed against this pandemic, or any future outbreak, unless we stand together, share information, and coordinate actions."
Technology sharing tool launches; Moscow revises death count
In other pandemic developments today, the WHO and Costa Rica led the launch of a COVID-19 Technology Access pool, which Tedros said is a sister initiative to the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, an $8.1 billion effort to speed the development and equitable access to new tools to battle COVID-19.
The access pool, which is voluntary, will provide a one-stop to share scientific knowledge, data, and intellectual property.
Moscow, meanwhile, more than doubled its number of deaths for April following criticism of its data that said Russia relied on a different counting method, Reuters reported today. Moscow, the country's hot spot, now reports 1,561 deaths, compared with 636 initially reported for April. The new number includes people with COVID-19 who died from other causes and those who died from suspected infections.
Twitter yesterday applied a fact-checking label on two tweets from a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman who claimed that the US Army carried SARS-CoV-2 to Wuhan, CNET reported.
In South Korea, more than 500 schools in Seoul closed today, shortly after reopening, as part of measures related to a flare-up of COVID-19 cases in the city linked to nightclub outbreaks and a big cluster at an e-commerce warehouse, CNN reported.
