Did the World Health Organization ‘Take China’s Word’ Early On in the Pandemic?

Yes, actually.

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On Twitter Tuesday, the host of MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber, disputed President Trump’s remarks about the World Health Organization’s response to coronavirus in January:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Frank Vergden

    The most no-nonsense factcheck series in all the land.

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  2. Mary Stine

    A relative who is a VP in international marketing, realized through her Chinese colleagues that the situation in China was dire in January and starting taking steps to try and procure PPE for her co-workers in China from her desk in the US. She also began prep for a probable lockdown or stay at home here in late February or March.
    Surely the President of the United States, a businessman himself, had similar warnings. If he didn't trust our intelligence community, he could have just asked Ivanka to contact her Chinese manufacturing partners.
    The WHO should not be cast as the only bad player here. The ultimate bad player is the man who has consistently ignored, refuted, and diminished all facts presented to him that he didn't like.

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    1. David Gaskin

      Well Trump can plead ignorance since he certainly is no infectious disease expert. The leadership at the WHO cannot really do the same... they absolutely should have known better than to re-tweet unconfirmed info. to an eager world.

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      1. Jon Urban

        Trump pleading ignorance...now that would be something, huh? These daily pandemic press briefings would be much more useful to the public if he did plead ignorance and let those who know what they are talking about lead the briefings.

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      Brian Andrews

      To say the ultimate "bad player" is Trump, not the lying Chinese and it's toady, WHO is insane.

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        Stephanie

        I could feel more upset about the Chinese and the WHO if they'd kept everyone in the dark until March. But they both put the word out at the end of 2019. Some world leaders responded promptly. Some did not. Unfortunately, ours was one of the last to acknowledge what was happening.

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    cheerio

    I still think what while our government hoped for the best, it's job was to prepare for the worst. Despite mixed messaging from the WHO. There were other warnings.

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    Idontdocute

    Just wondering...what was in the President's daily intelligence briefings over all of these months about this?

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    1. Avatar photo
      Stephanie

      Washington Post article:
      "The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.
      The surge in warnings coincided with a move by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to sell dozens of stocks worth between $628,033 and $1.72 million. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr was privy to virtually all of the highly classified reporting on the coronavirus."
      (Article entitled: "U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic" by Ellen Nakashima)

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    Portland Isaiah

    The President was suffering from confirmation bias. He believed that the virus was nothing serious, and was happy to repeat the words of those who said the same. Now that it is obvious that he, WHO, China, and others were wrong, he has backtracked. I am in favor of reconsidering the US contribution to WHO in light of their failures, but it is clear that they were all wrong.

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      Brian Andrews

      China and WHO were not wrong. China was lying and WHO was suppressing info in support of China. (See Taiwan's attempts to inform WHO.)

      To lump Trump in with them is nonsense and is something I would expect to read at the dopey Bulwark.

      Lastly, Faci said this week that every major public health recommend his he recommended as critical Trump implemented.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Idontdocute

        First, thank you for the recommendation of the Bulwark. I had never heard of them before.

        Second, to expect truth or openness from China is like expecting water to be dry. Always has been that way and will probably remain so. Having been following this since well before the organism had a name, the most important aspect, that it was unique, was enough to catch the attention and create concern. In the beginning China was the only country that had information and WHO had to work just to get allowed into the country. As has been pointed out, the President had repeated briefings from the beginning and he becomes responsible for his response at that time. I do not see how WHO or China has any responsibility for us or his decisions.

        We are the United States of America and we should be able to take care of ourselves without the assistance or direction of either of these entities.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Brian Andrews

    Trump's major mistake was taking what China & WHO were saying in Jan and February as true.

    Things will get interesting if it turns out Taiwan warned us at the same time WHO was ignoring them.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Stephanie

      Trump's major mistake was ignoring credible fact based warnings from the intelligence community which were coming to him in his daily intelligence briefing in January, and credible warnings from Alex Azar starting in mid-January, that an epidemic was heading our way and healthcare providers would need equipment and PPE. He deliberately ignored this information. I doubt at any time has Trump looked to the WHO for guidance. He trusts his "gut", right? His major mistake(s) are the reason why he is blasting out propaganda from his bully pulpit now in the guise of pandemic briefings, trying to confuse people about what really happened.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Brian Andrews

        Or maybe he was getting a lot of conflicting information all the while USA had exactly zero cases. Exactly zero governors would have implemented state at home orders in mid January without any cases. Ohio was maybe the first state to issue state at home orders and this didn't happen unit March 9, the same week the first cases in the state were confirmed.

        Separately the The Dispatch is committed to fact based news reporting. This is why I subscribe. Please everyone stop citing The Washington Post. It's the equal to MSNBC when it comes to insane coverage Trump.

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          Stephanie

          Apparently the conflicting information was between the intel briefings/WHO/tons of news from abroad about the epidemic (all of which he should have reacted to) and the right wing media like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Alex Jones, who convinced him not to take it seriously.

          As for the WaPo, the Dispatch quotes it liberally. So perhaps you need to revise your opinion of it.

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        2. Jon Urban

          I appreciate that our Dispatch reporters (and many readers/posters!) have the capacity to digest the news from several different sources in an effort to tease out the baloney to get to the facts. That's the ultimate goal here. Reflexively dismissing news based solely on its source says a lot about a person or organization's pursuits.

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            Brian Andrews

            Thanks for a real world example of sanctimony.

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  7. Bruce Wing

    Excellent journalism. Thank you.

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About Alec Dent

Alec Dent is the culture editor and a staff writer for The Dispatch. He is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC Chapel Hill, and previously oversaw The Dispatch's fact checking team.
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