Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar spewed Trump Administration trademarked misdirection at Monday’s World Health Assembly (WHA):
We must be frank about one of the primary reasons this outbreak spun out of control: There was a failure by [the World Health Organization] to obtain the information that the world needed, and that failure cost many lives.
To this point, note that the country with a 1300-kilometer border with China, Vietnam, has had zero deaths.
Zero deaths.
- Japan: 749 deaths
- Malaysia: 113 deaths
- Singapore: 22 deaths
- South Korea: 263 deaths
- Taiwan: 7 deaths
Everyone got the same heads up at the same time.
More than 100 countries are reportedly supporting a WHA resolution to create an independent investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic.
After major outbreaks such as West Africa’s 2014 Ebola epidemic, the WHO routinely conducts both internal and external reviews into its actions. However, a handful of countries, including the United States, have called for an earlier investigation, charging that the WHO didn’t warn the world soon enough that that it has sided with China. The United States—with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths— faces its own criticism for its slow and uneven response.
Note that the US is the third most populous country in the world and does not have the highest reported per capita case (449.17) or highest reported per capita death (27.06) rate per 100,000 population.
Those distinctions, cases (17 May 2020):
- Qatar, 1131.67 cases/100,000
- Andorra, 984.92 cases/100,000
- Luxembourg, 630.21 cases/100,000
- Iceland, 528.0 cases/100,000
- Spain, 493.42 cases/100,000
Those distinctions, deaths (17 May 2020):
- Belgium, 78.10 deaths/100,000 (reports all nursing home deaths)
- Andorra, 66.01 deaths/100,000
- Spain, 58.95 deaths/100,000
- Italy, 52.77 deaths/100,000
- United Kingdom, 51.14 deaths/100,000
Reminder that President Trump has not paid WHO dues even though Congress allocated the funds.
