“There’ll be more body bags if you politicise coronavirus crisis”- WHO chief to Trump
Story by Alfred Omenihu
US president, Donald Trump has criticised the World Health Organization (WHO), and by implication Beijing, saying the global body is “China centric” and “biased” towards the rival superpower. As Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak, began to return to normal life, Trump said the WHO had been wrong about a lot of things”, and threatened to put a hold on WHO funding. 
The ban on Wuhan has been lifted hence allowing people to leave for the first time since the central Chinese city was sealed off 76 days ago to contain the coronavirus that first emerged there late last year. Roughly 65,000 had left within hours of the restrictions being lifted.
But as China’s outbreak eases, the pandemic is deepening in other parts of the world. The US now has nearly 400,000 cases, and 13,000 deaths, compared with close to 83,000 cases in China and 3,337 deaths. Globally, there are more than 1.4m cases and just over 82,000 deaths. The United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in intensive care with the disease, also reported its biggest daily rise in deaths. There are fears that the UK will become the worst hit country in Europe with more than 40% of the continent’s deaths, according to forecasts. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicted 66,000 UK deaths from Covid-19 by August, with a peak of nearly 3,000 fatalities a day. New Zealand’s swift decision to impose strict lockdown measures last month appears to be paying off, with the nation recording its lowest number of new coronavirus cases in a fortnight. 
Meanwhile, the President of WHO’s biggest source of funds, President Donald Trump has threatened to put a “hold” on funds for the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing the organisation of bias towards China and performing badly in the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re going to investigate it, we’re going to look at it. But we will look at ending funding, yeah, because you know what, they called it wrong, and if you look back over the years even, everything seems to be very biased toward China. That’s not right.”
Trump has previously questioned China’s reported numbers of infections, saying last week said they were “a little on the light side”, and referred to the outbreak as the Chinese virus the, prompting complaints from Beijing.
Reacting to the controversy, the World Health Organisation’s boss Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned leaders not to politicise the coronavirus pandemic when the world needs to work together.
At a press conference in Geneva, Dr Tedros issued a plea against politicising the pandemic, equating it to playing with fire.
“Please don’t politicise this virus. It exploits the differences you have at the national level. If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you do it,” Dr Tedros said in a defensive response to questions about the US president’s comments. He asked the United States and China to work together and asked for people to “quarantine” politicising the virus.
“We shouldn’t waste time pointing fingers. We need time to unite,” Dr Tedros added.
He also defended the track record of the international health organisation, listing several areas in which the organisation has worked to combat the virus, including building country capacity to prepare and respond, publishing guidance, engaging global doctors, and informing the public about the virus.
“We have been doing everything we can. We will continue to do everything day and night like we have been doing… we want to learn from our mistakes and move forward. But for now, the focus should be on fighting this virus.”
