The World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 had become a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The announcement arrived when there were already 118,000 confirmed cases in 114 countries and more than 4,200 deaths. It came so late because WHO, under Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, deferred to Beijing as the virus emerged.
The death toll in the United States alone could surpass 1 million, yet President Joe Biden has given up on reforming WHO, which still has not conducted a credible investigation of the pandemic’s origins and is not prepared to challenge Beijing if it hides another outbreak. Last year, Ghebreyesus ran unopposed for a second five-year term as WHO chief because the Biden administration did not recruit another candidate. Yet without change at the top, WHO will remain broken.
