Comment by hedora
1 day ago
Like Trump 1.0’s handling of COVID, this outbreak is going to spread further and faster than it would have if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives.
Those initiatives inevitably cost far less than the economic impact of outbreaks (the US is currently diverting international travelers), but the best deal maker in the history of the universe says they’re a “bad deal”, so the rest of the planet gets to suffer.
> if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives
There are ~197 countries in the world, you should also criticize the other 196 for also not wanting to pay for the exact same thing.
Pillai again dodged questions on why an American doctor infected in the outbreak and another exposed were sent to Germany and the Czech Republic, respectively, and not to the US.
I criticise one country for denying re-entry of their own infected citizens.
I'm American. I will criticize America. If you live in another country, you work there to improve how you help the least fortunate people on the planet. I'm not going to write letters to the government of Turkmenistan. It should also be noted America is the richest country in the history of the world so expecting to do more is quite reasonable.
The bigger picture is we should have a global agency to deal with such issues, funded proportionally by all countries (within reason). That humanity hasn’t been able to achieve such collaboration (unless and many other topics) is a miserable indictment of our progress as a species.
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Maybe there should have been a plan. A period of notice and a transition plan. It couldn't happen, since the Trump administration does not believe in competence, only in spectacle.
More so none of them have actually started and ran a real successful business. Just trustfund babies who don't know how anything operates.
Maybe there could have been direct solicitation for funds from other countries before suddenly and dramatically pulling the plug on decades of hard work?
The US touts itself as being in the position of the richest and most powerful country in the world. The president lays claim to the title "leader of the free world". They deserve the blame to match their means and influence.
I'm also not going to criticize, for example, the UK, for recently providing 20 million pounds in new aid to help contain the outbreak...
given how Trump is the direct cause of making flights so expensive that many countries are slowing down or stopping flights to or from them... there is a fair chance his incompetence is going to directly lead to a lack of spreading.
And just like during the COVID pandemic, look who sits in the White (Casino) House again ... with Elon's DOGE having cut even more essential pandemic monitoring and response systems.