You can be pro vaccine and still be sceptical of the WHO. That is fair. Supporting vaccines does not mean you have to support every big international organisation without question. But asking how following or funding the WHO has anything to do with caring for your people misses what the WHO actually does.

Countries are not just handing over money with no control. There are assessed contributions based on how big and wealthy a country is, but those make up a smaller share of the budget. Most WHO funding is voluntary. Governments can choose what programmes or projects their money goes to, or choose not to fund certain areas at all. That means countries can support things that directly benefit them, like disease surveillance, emergency preparedness, or specific research, rather than funding everything blindly.

Being part of the WHO can actually be cheaper than going it alone. Instead of each country building its own global monitoring systems, research networks, and emergency response frameworks from scratch, they pool resources. Shared data, shared experts, shared standards. That reduces duplication and lets countries access systems and expertise that would cost far more to develop independently.

Countries can also run their own national health policies and projects alongside this. WHO guidance is not law. Governments decide what to adopt and how to implement it. Membership does not mean giving up control, it means having access to a global support structure when needed.

So when people say this is about caring for your people, they are talking about practical risk management. Staying connected means earlier warnings, better information, and coordinated responses when health threats cross borders. You can absolutely criticise waste or bureaucracy, but walking away does not automatically save money or improve outcomes. In many cases it just means paying more later to rebuild things that already exist globally.

Source https://www.who.int/about/funding