Opinion | The WHO’s coronavirus response shows that the organisation is broken, but fixing it must wait

US President Donald Trump is wrong to withhold funding from the World Health Organisation. The global health body, however, has made serious mistakes since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak that have overwhelmed health systems and cost lives.

The WHO unquestioningly endorsed Chinese government information that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission, doubted that asymptomatic patients could transmit the virus, questioned the effectiveness of healthy people wearing masks to prevent community spread, recommended against countries evacuating citizens from Wuhan and opposed flight restrictions and travel bans.

All the while, the WHO and, in particular, its director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised China’s efforts at combating the virus as “setting a new standard” and insisted that China was “completely committed to transparency”.

WHO press briefings at times became almost comical as the effusive praise for China’s quarantine and isolation efforts would be quickly followed by advice to other nations not to adopt the same measures and cut off China from the world. More bizarre has been the organisation’s disquiet at the mere mention of Taiwan, despite the island’s impressive handling of the crisis.