Blame Game. Should the WHO bear full responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic?

The World Health Organization (WHO) was founded in 1948 and is the specialized health agency of the United Nations. It facilitates cooperation between its 194 member states on issues related to health and disease.

The roles of the WHO include:

• Universal health coverage
• Coordinate responses to health emergency
• Promote health and wellbeing

It has played an influential leading role in health achievements, such as eradicating smallpox, vaccinating against polio, developing an Ebola vaccine. It successfully oversaw the outbreak of SARS, Ebola and other diseases. It currently focuses on diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other non-transmissible diseases such as cancer and heart diseases. Its functions are largely “normative” says Kelley Lee, research chair in global health governance at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. Meaning, it is primarily an advisory body, “providing guidelines and technical advice, collecting data, statistics, and so on.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO found itself under intense scrutiny by some member states, especially by the Trump administration; for failing to do its job in containing the novel coronavirus and acting as a “lapdog” for the Chinese.

Role of the WHO in the COVID-19 pandemic

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As the novel coronavirus made its way to every side of the globe, the WHO was responsible in notifying the world of the emergence of an infectious disease with pandemic potential and coordinating a global response by providing technical and guidance support to member states in order to contain the virus. Moreover, it coordinates in the development of a vaccine, in order to better contain the spread of the virus.

Who’s at fault? How is the WHO being criticized?

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The WHO was criticized harshly for being too slow to warn the world of the virus, declaring it a pandemic on March 11, 2020; several months after it was warned by Taiwan of the emergence of a disease in Wuhan; the alert went largely ignored by the WHO. Another criticism of the WHO was that it was too generous of its praise for China; despite a near unanimous assumption that China is covering up the true extent of the virus and did not cooperate in the initial stages when it was most crucial. Lawrence Gostin, an American professor who has spent 30 years with the World Health Organization, laments WHO’s incapability to act swiftly, in part because the organization cannot enter without an invitation by the country, which in this case China was blocking; holding China at fault. Lawrence, however, admits that the WHO should have stood up at least.

The Taiwan debacle

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A growing number of leaders have been scrutinizing the WHO’s dealing of the pandemic. One thorn has been the email Taiwan sent on December 31, warning the WHO of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. This topic became divisive as critics, including US president Donald Trump, accuse the WHO of ignoring Taiwan’s warning, a claim which the Director-General of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus denies. This has sparked a blame game between the organization and members states over who is at fault for letting the disease spiral out of control. The WHO has defended itself, saying Taiwan did not mention the human to human transmission aspect of the virus and that it was not the first country to send a warning, opposing the claim that it ignored Taiwan’s warning. It is worth mentioning that Taiwan is not a member of the UN, thus is omitted from the WHO; the result of vehement Chinese opposition to its membership.

How Powerful is the WHO? Not much

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The WHO does not hold an independent authority and it depends on the cooperation of its member states. “WHO doesn’t have any resources to be the action on the ground” says Kelley Lee. People have placed a false expectation that “‘WHO should do this, WHO should do that.’ Well, WHO is the member states. So if you want WHO to do something, then the member-states have to get together and say, ‘Do this.’”

Professor Lawrence Gostin calls for empowering the organization, providing it a political backing. “I can tell you episode after episode after episode, where countries around the world literally just ignored WHO, ignored scientific evidence, whether from Ebola to SARS to H1N1 to Zika and now with the coronavirus.” he says. Furthermore, he scolds the international community for underfunding the organization, working on a budget similarly sized to a single large US hospital. “The world has the WHO that it deserves because it gives it very little funding the size of one US hospital, it gives it no political backing” demonstrating the entanglement of the WHO in geopolitical power play by major countries, widely undermining the efforts of the organization. ‘The world had enough time to intervene’ Director-General of the WHO Tedros defended the organization.

Who is to blame for letting the novel coronavirus spiral out of control?

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