and economic pain in the united states will help salvage a difficult electionpresident trump has embraced the strategy calling out chinas misinformation and the whos chinacentric response in the early days of the pandemiche has accused the who without evidence of helping china to obscure the extent of its epidemic in the early days as well as being slow to release guidelines for precautions against infectionsin fact the who began raising alarms in early january as soon as it was informed by china of a new mysterious illness in the city of wuhan on friday dr tedros insisted that the who did not waste any time in traveling to beijing to discuss with the leadership and to find to see for ourselves the situation in chinain midapril mr trump announced he would halt funding to the who the united states is by far the organizations largest benefactordr tedros announced friday that the european investment bank would provide grants and financial support to help strengthen global supply chains and facilitate the distribution of diagnostics personal protective equipment and other medical supplieswe look forward to seeing how that type of innovative financing could deliver real results for global health when who is advocating health for all dr tedros said who is deeply grateful to the european investment bank for its support and collaborationlike the science times page on facebook sign up for the science times newsletterbut the trump administration has not been alone in criticizing the who some public health experts and officials of other countries including japans finance minister have also said the organization was too deferential to chinaothers have said the who should have realized in early january that there was humantohuman transmission of the virus and that the organization should stop blocking participation by taiwanyet the who has still managed the coronavirus crisis as well as it could and better than the trump administration has many experts saythe who helped arrange testing supplies and personal protective equipment for countries in need and held daily news meetings to warn the world that the virus was spreading and that countries should do everything they could to stop itat nearly every briefing dr tedros repeated we have a window of opportunity to stop this virus but that window is rapidly closingon friday didier houssin chair of the who emergency committee said that committee members had made more than 20 recommendations hoping to reduce disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemicthe guidance focuses on mitigating interruptions to the distribution of food and medicines caused by lockdowns a safe return to work and resumption of normal air travel the committee said researchers would continue to look for the animal thought to be the original source of the coronavirus and to develop potential vaccines and therapieswe encourage countries to follow whos advice which we are constantly reviewing and updating as we learn more about the virus and as we learn more from countries about best practices for responding to it dr tedros said