Pandemic watch: How W & O Gave China WHO

How did the World Health Organization end up under the disastrous ­directorship of a China apologist? The blame, Bill Powell explains at Newsweek, lies with successive US presidents, especially George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who dealt with Beijing on the basis of the “hope” that “as China prospered, its authoritarian style of government would mellow.” They allowed “China to gain more clout in international institutions, such as the WHO,” thinking that such engagement would turn Chinese Communists into “responsible stakeholders.” Well, so much for that. As for the current aspirants to the Oval Office, “Biden has consistently downplayed Beijing as an economic and geopolitical rival” and is thus much less likely to push back. But the era of Sino-American comity is over: “Someone tell Joe Biden.”

Libertarian: Community vs. Corona

All of the politicians in “the fight between the governors and President Trump over who has the authority to re-open America” are wrong, blasts The New York Sun’s Ira Stoll: That decision is up to “individuals, families, businesses and religious congregations,” not politicians. The real reasons America will open are simple: Family members want to see each other, business owners “want to make money” and people of all faiths will want to gather in their places of worship. And it’s the individual who can best weigh the risks, “the costs and benefits of each trip out versus staying home.” Even in a public-health crisis, after all, the government’s job is protecting “freedom, competition, choice and diversity,” not experimenting with “one-size-fits-all compulsion or command-and-control authoritarianism.”

Foreign desk: Trump’s Right on WHO Funding

President Trump’s decision to “stop funding the World Health Organization” was the right one, Gordon G. Chang argues at Fox News: Trump’s move is likely to spark “meaningful reform of the United Nations” as a whole and especially “the global health architecture.” At the same time, it will punish WHO. And with good reason: Under director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, it “disseminated China’s false narrative that the ­virus was not transmissible person-to-person,” supported Beijing’s calls not to impose “travel bans and quarantines on travelers from China,” publicly “backed the reliability” of Beijing’s shoddy stats and “delayed declaring the coronavirus epidemic a ‘public-health emergency of international concern’ until Jan. 30.” In light of all that, Trump was right to “hold the WHO accountable.” Here’s hoping the president will focus minds at the UN agency and thus help “fashion a better response” to the pandemic.

From the right: Schiff Comes for the Coronavirus

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff — who “plundered the library of racy novels, dreamy fairy tales and bizarre science-fiction paperbacks” to create an impeachment narrative against President Trump — is back, sighs The Washington Times’ Charles Hurt. Schiff and other Democrats, Hurt snarks, are stopping just short of claiming “the president was conspiring with the leaders of Wuhan, China, and the wild-bat-delicacy industry” to spark the coronavirus outbreak. Of course, Schiff’s “latest fever dream is downright comical”: For one thing, Schiff was busying himself with impeachment when Trump was making “actual decisions” to “combat the pandemic.” It just shows Schiff will do anything to bring down the president — but he should watch out: At this point, even “the most rabid anti-Trump voter” probably won’t buy “another fantastical lie.”

Conservative: RIP, Abigail Thernstrom

At National Review, Roger Clegg mourns the death of Abigail Thernstrom, a onetime progressive whose “intellectual honesty” and “courage” led her to become “a star in the conservative firmament.” As “an invaluable expert on a wide variety of racial and civil-rights issues,” she was a fellow at multiple think tanks, including the Manhattan Institute, and served on both the US Commission on Civil Rights and the Massachusetts Board of Education. Her award-winning works, some with her husband Stephen, include “America in Black and White,” “Whose Votes Count?” and others. Above all, her “warmth, energy, humor, intelligence and willingness to be out of step will be greatly missed.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board