The U.S. completed the withdrawal on Jan. 22, 2026, and the next day, California Gov. “Newsom has no authority to bind California — or Californians — to the WHO,” notes Rita Barnett-Rose of the California Globe. While serving as Ethiopia’s health minister from 2005 to 2012, Tedros was accused of covering up three separate cholera outbreaks. That governing style closely mirrored the WHO’s centralized, one-size-fits-all pandemic framework — far more than the approach taken by most U.S. governors. Newsom and his West Coast Health Alliance are a lot like the WHO, it would be hard to blame them.