How the WHO has reacted throughout the pandemic

Camila Adamez

Politics of Global Pandemic

Throughout this pandemic there have been many questionable actions that have taken place. As we all know 2020 has only brought bad news thus far. During this pandemic the WHO have taken a big part on how we get our information. Although according to an article written by David P. Fidler of Tink Global Health he states, “Claims that WHO turned a blind eye to China’s dissembling about its outbreak suggest that WHO failed to act on information it had from other sources, including the failure to share that information with other countries.”

In the beginning of the start of this pandemic the WHO was not taking necessary actions. They were keeping silent about the mandatory quarantine we were supposed to do and also about the isolation measures. In conclusion this made people not trust the WHO and not look at them as a trustworthy resource outlet.

In China there was a stay at home quarantine placed on their citizens way before the Wuhan outbreak. China’s position on sovereignty was reflected when they got the WHO involved and how they seriously responded to the international implications. This putting WHO in an untrustworthy situation for the United State. Due to the fact that at the beginning of this quarantine our president believed that the Coronavirus was a start of a war from China. Then figuring out that the WHO was involved with them did not make our president any happier.

At the very start of this, human to human transmission was being very closely observed and it was stated that there was no evidence that the virus was spreading in that way. But as we all know today that was exactly how it is spreading day by day. As said in an article written by Kathy Gilsinan of The Atlantic, she states, “On January 20, a Chinese official confirmed publicly for the first time that the virus could indeed spread among humans, and within days locked down Wuhan.” This goes to show that we had known about how serious the virus was months before and yet when it was the USA time to experience it, we were too slow in starting the lockdowns.

All of this has happened because the WHO have been a big part in how well some parts of the world is doing as of now. Although, what could have they done differently?

Sources:

Fidler, David P. “The World Health Organization and Pandemic Politics: Think Global Health.” Council on Foreign Relations, 10 Apr. 2020, www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/world–health–organization–and–pandemic–politics.

Gilsinan, Kathy. “How China Deceived the WHO.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 Apr. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world–health–organizationblame–pandemic–coronavirus/609820/.