ONCE again, US President Donald Trump has let his ego get the better of him. In the midst of a pandemic, he has suspended funding for the World Health Organisation, engaged in yet another blame game, peddled misinformation, and endangered countless lives in the process. Last week, Mr Trump had accused the global health body of being pro-China and reacted angrily to criticism of how he handled the crisis. Instead, he blamed WHO for misleading the world, and distracted attention from the real issues by targeting his favourite scapegoat: the media. At this point in time, when over 2m cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported throughout the world, with over 128,000 deaths, Mr Trump’s actions and words come across as inexcusably selfish and dangerously reckless. While this is a difficult time and there are no quick or easy solutions to the problems confronting leaderships around the world, and even if some criticisms of global humanitarian bodies are valid, they are the only institutions battling misinformation on a global scale, providing essential supplies and services to those who need them the most, and connecting the world by upholding some semblance of a global community, which is especially important in times of growing polarisation and parochial concepts of nationalism — something Mr Trump and others fuel well. Because, truly, we are all in this together.

Failing to take timely action and refusing to listen to the experts, the US now has the highest rate of infection anywhere in the world, with under-equipped and under-resourced hospitals and medical staff struggling to contain the spread of the virus and save lives. Already, over 609,000 people have been diagnosed in the US, while around 26,000 are known to have died from it. At the rate the number of cases is climbing, it is difficult to even keep track of the figures, but it is the poor who are most vulnerable. The world cannot revolve around one rich man.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2020