In response to President Donald Trump’s assertion that the World Health Organization dropped the ball in its coronavirus response, executive director Mike Ryan says WHO “alerted the world on January the 5th.”

Ryan’s reaction comes one day after Trump accused the organization of “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” Claiming WHO officials “deprived the scientific community of essential data” that would have helped curb the virus’ spread, Trump cut the health organization’s funding.

However, Ryan says, “In the first weeks of January, the WHO was very, very clear” in warning the world of the potential danger. “We alerted the world on January the 5th,” Ryan says. “Systems around the world, including the U.S., began to activate their incident management systems on January the 6th. And through the next number of weeks, we’ve produced multiple updates to countries.” He added WHO officials “regret” the president’s decision to stop providing funds.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/835179442/we-alerted-the-world-to-coronavirus-on-jan-5-who-says-in-response-to-u-s