President Donald Trump yesterday threatened to cut US funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO), accusing it of bias towards China, where the authorities lifted a two-and-a-half-month travel ban on Wuhan, the city that spawned the global coronavirus pandemic. Trump said the WHO was “very China-centric” in its approach, suggesting the UN agency had gone along with Beijing’s efforts months ago to minimise the severity of the outbreak. WATCH: Trump announces a “hold” on money going to the WHO, calls them “China centric.” “They missed the call. They could have called it months earlier … they should have known. And they probably did know.” pic.twitter.com/kSi3Aq6DyY — Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) April 7, 2020 “The WHO really blew it,” Trump said in a Twitter. Trump declared he would cut US funding for the organisation, before backtracking and saying he would “strongly consider” such a move. He also downplayed the release of memos from a senior adviser in January which warned of a possible pandemic as cases continued to rise across the US. He told reporters he was not aware of the memos in January but had unilaterally followed some of their recommendations, including taking steps to curtail travel from China. But he added that he would not have wanted to act prematurely when it was not clear how dire the situation would become. “I don’t want to create havoc and shock and everything else. I’m not going to go out and start screaming, ’This could happen, this could happen’,” Trump said. The UK Government has said 30,000 ventilators will be needed for the NHS to cope with the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, on Tuesday New York City’s pandemic death toll of at least 4,000 people eclipsed the number of those killed at the World Trade Centre on 11 September, 2001.