Originally Posted By: JohnJohnJohn
Imagine your neighborhood is burning. Your house is on fire. Your family and friends' houses are on fire. Lots of folks you don't know, their houses are on fire too.

A large fire company sends pumper trucks to various places in the neighborhood. They are actively pouring water on the fire. They're not the only one but they are making significant contributions to controlling the fire.

But the mayor of said neighborhood believes that the fire company might have withheld info on the fire or otherwise mismanaged the handling of it. And he may be right! Yet their current fire fighting efforts are significant in helping put out the fire and preventing further spread.

So, instead of waiting until the fire that is ravaging the neighborhood is under control, the mayor orders the water, being used by that fire company to put out the fires, be immediately TURNED OFF!

We could all agree, regardless of politics, that that is dangerously stupid, right?

https://apnews.com/f49b0be2bca44de0bf045cdaa95b69c6



I was in agreement with you up to the sentence; "They are actively pouring water on the fire. They're not the only one but they are making significant contributions to controlling the fire." as to your story correlating to the WHO's current issue with President Trump in your link where WHO corresponds to being the fire department and Trump the mayor. The WHO (fire department) has not had a significant presence nor significant impact in the US coronavirus response. You may have better luck than I did in a Google search where I used the query "what significant help has WHO given the US during the pandemic" which didn't return a single story highlighting or featuring the WHO leading the US response.

A more accurate analogy of WHO's (fire department) role in the neighborhood fire is they monitored the fire but didn't pour water on the fire. Rather, they provided incorrect, insufficient, misleading and false information about the fire's intensity, severity and locations that caused the other fire departments fighting the fire to delay, misdirect resources and otherwise significantly miss getting ahead with their initial response.

Although WHO did not provide significant help in controlling the neighborhood fire, and the fire is still raging, WHO demands their normal share of the neighborhoods water supply they have contracted with the neighborhood in a Mutual Aid Agreement. The mayor can't cancel or negate the water payment to this fire department but he's certainly within his rights and has a duty to his neighborhood to delay the water payment and also review that fire departments conduct.

Also, regarding your imaginary fire department, WHO's duties and funding is not similar to your analogy. WHO's funding is separated into two types, assessment and voluntary. Assessment funding covers operating type expenses primarily and WHO has discretionary control. Voluntary funds are mostly bestowed and designated to how it's spent. The mayor (Trump) has no say in a lot of those funds.

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