Fact-checking realDonaldTrump's letter blasting the WHO
In previous administrations, a letter to an international organization signed by the U.S. president generally would have been carefully vetted and fact-checked. But President Donald Trump’s May 18 letter to World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus contains a number of false or misleading statements in it.
The sentence in Trump’s letter could have been imprecisely phrased. The Jan. 24 Lancet study says “the symptom onset date of the first patient identified was Dec. 1, 2019,” with patients in the study hospitalized between Dec. 16 and Jan. 2. The White House did not respond to a request for an explanation.“By no later than December 30, 2019, the World Health Organization office in Beijing knew that there was a ‘major public health’ concern in Wuhan.
Apparently, Taiwanese officials had been alerted to Dec. 30 posts in a chat room by a doctor, Li Wenliang, in which he said that seven cases he had been treating resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a deadly form of coronavirus. Li was reprimanded by the Chinese government for illegally spreading rumors. He later died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
There is strong evidence that Chinese officials were slow to act in response to reports from medical professionals starting in mid-December about a strange new disease. “A bureaucratic culture that prioritizes political stability over all else probably allowed the virus to spread farther and faster,” The Washington Post reported on Feb. 1.
Note the use of the word “reportedly.” Trump appears to be citing a German news report that was based on a German intelligence finding. The WHO has denied the report as “unfounded and untrue,” noting: “Dr. Tedros and President Xi did not speak on 21 January and they have never spoken by telephone.
The World Health Organization has cautioned against such travel restrictions, saying they are ineffective against a virus and in the long run are counterproductive. Trump, according to news reports, was initially skeptical and worried about provoking China after signing a major trade deal. But his national security and public health experts convinced him that the move would buy time to put in place effective prevention and testing measures.
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