Did anyone else read the hilarious statement put out by our Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of State for why the U.S. has pulled out of the World Health Organisation?

It’s right here, if you want to read it yourself. Let’s take a look at what these clowns have said, shall we?

Reasons concerning the handling of COVID:

“…due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”

I think it is safe to assume that many of the leading minds and directors within the WHO would admit mistakes were made along the way. They were, after all, humans dealing with a novel virus and novel emergency. My question here is what reforms are the they talking about? If you want to throw accusations about a need for reform, please list them. But the most laughable part of this statement pertains to the political influence of member states. The U.S. under the Trump administration loves to tell the World how much money we spend on foreign-supported organisations (WHO, UN, WB, USAID) and how great and powerful we are. As a member state of the WHO, and such a robust one at that, were we not the primary influencer of WHO policies and actions? Or is the “inappropriate” part just directed at countries who are not the U.S.?

Next, they claim there was a delay in declaring a global emergency. Here is a timeline of involvement by the WHO and their early coordination with the People’s Republic of China.

End of December (31st through Jan 4) there had yet to be any evidence of disease outside of China and no reported deaths.

By January 9 the virus had finally been identified as a novel coronavirus.

January 10th they held their first meetings with global coordination boards and began issuing guidance.

January 11th the first death was reported in China.

January 13 the first case outside of China was reported.

The timeline continues on and you can see that within the first two weeks COVID-19 wasn’t even a pandemic. To claim they acted in a delayed fashion is quite honestly a ridiculous statement. One day later the guidelines and travel alerts were issued by the WHO, and long after European countries had issued stay-at-home orders, the U.S. was going about business as usual (well, some states). When the U.S. did try implementing restrictions (again, state by state, with no cohesive regulations), several people lost their minds.

Most regular folks aren’t aware of the WHO, let alone what they do, and most American’s turn to the CDC or local and federal officials for guidance, so when the U.S. President at the time was endorsing snake oil remedies that were incredibly dangerous and highly ineffective whilst fanning the flames of unrest, how is an organisation such as the WHO supposed to control the narrative? They don’t have jurisdiction over countries, nor do they have law-making abilities.

As for the accusations that there was no admission of human-to-human spread…that’s just how science works. Evidence is required to make certain assertions. When a pathogen first becomes zoonotic (meaning, it jumps species), transmission is typically only between the host species and the new species during these spillover events. It requires additional mutations for the new species to transmit the disease amongst their own population. However, it took the WHO only 8 days to determine the real potential for human-to-human transmission, an announcement that came the very same day the U.S. reported it’s very first case (although, I do want to point out that it doesn’t mean it WAS the first case).

Then there is this paragraph near the end:

“The U.S. is the world’s leading force in protecting public health, saving lives, and responding rapidly to infectious disease outbreaks. Going forward, the U.S. government will continue its global health leadership through existing and new engagements directly with other countries, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and faith-based entities.”

Sure, we were once a leading force in this area, but as someone with a background in the sciences, I do not trust any statement put out by our HHS at this time. And whilst I commend the idea of reaching across various groups and entities to provide guidance for individuals to live with dignity and agency, “faith-based entities” are not part of the global or public health sector and should not be part of our governmental decision-making bodies.

This document is a farce and if you are reading this from outside of the U.S., don’t worry. Between the new dietary guidelines, the dismissal of so many of our brightest minds (what spawned the new verb “doged”), our refusal to use science-based data to drive public health decisions, the endless deregulation, and our abysmal healthcare system, we will all be too ill to fight off any enemies. You can probably just come in and take our lands from us.

We’ll be busy battling listeria, heart disease, diabetes, polluted water and air, and hell…probably the bubonic plague by the year’s end.

All of this feels less like taking a stand against an unfair system and a lot more like finding excuses to depart from global memberships in order to misbehave without consequence. But everything has a consequence – even if it isn’t the one you thought it would be.