The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized United Nations agency focused on world public health. Top of their priorities at this time is COVID-19—a newly emerged strain of the coronavirus.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is an Ethiopian academic who has served as Director-General of the WHO since 2017.
On Thursday, Dr. Tedros posted a Twitter thread warning about the importance of an organized and calm response to the outbreak.
One of the tweets in the thread was particularly pointed, and after recent irresponsible comments by President Donald Trump about COVID-19, many think the message is directed at one particular world leader who does most of his communicating on Twitter.
Dr. Tedros posted:
"Leadership from the top: We call on country leaders to mobilize their plans, coordinating every part of government, not just the health ministry—security, diplomacy, finance, commerce, transport, trade, information and more—the whole government should be involved. #COVID19"
He added:
"We're concerned that in some countries the level of political commitment & the actions that demonstrate that commitment don't match the level of the threat we all face."
"This is:"
"NOT a drill"
"NOT the time to give up"
"NOT a time for excuses"
"This is a time for pulling out all the stops"
In recent days, President Trump touted the "positive impact" of COVID-19 and attempted to again blame the Obama administration despite a lack of overlap between the emergence of COVID-19 and the presidency of Barack Obama. Trump also told MAGA rally attendees the coronavirus is a hoax perpetrated by Democrats.
Others concurred with Dr. Tedros' message and called out Trump's handling of the crisis.
Although some in the USA were certain any warnings would be ignored.
As of Thursday, the latest numbers for COVID-19 infections are 98,067 with 3,356 deaths. In the United States, 213 cases have been confirmed with 12 deaths.
