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4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January, when the WHO was denying the need for travel lockdowns. The misinformation coming out of the WHO is what

by ColanR 6y ago

4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January, when the WHO was denying the need for travel lockdowns. The misinformation coming out of the WHO is what killed people, not the early warning that 4chan gave us. Edit: note that in both replies to my comment, none of the specific facts I mentioned were responded to. The response of the countries is being blamed, the date I mentioned is being ignored; but I am comparing the information coming publicly out of the WHO in January to the information coming out of 4chan in January. In hindsight, if you compared the information from both at that time, you would have had a better idea of the real situation if you believed 4chan over the WHO.

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phs318u 6y ago
Do you really believe that? Check archive.org. The WHO published info on CV including technical guidance for the health ministries of nation states, at least as early as January 24. It’s safe to assume that national delegates would have been in discussions with WHO ahead of this. Remember, there’s only one WHO and yet we have many different responses and outcomes in different countries. The only logical conclusion is that those nations who’s responses led to poor outcomes should look to their own interpretation of WHO advice and the decisions they themselves made, as the cause of poor outcomes.
- enaaem 6y ago
  In Februari the WHO urges to not impose travel bans: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-chief-says-widespread-travel-bans-not-needed-to-beat-china-virus-idUSKBN1ZX1H3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-chie... Nations who handled the crisis the best, imposed travel bans early on and were criticised by the WHO. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china-coronavirus-is-officially-an-international-emergency/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china...
  - phs318u 6y ago
    His actual speech (that Reuter’s reported on). https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov) https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... The key sentence that Tedros is being criticised for is: “First, there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.” However, in the same speech: “ we must all act together now to limit further spread. The vast majority of cases outside China have a travel history to Wuhan, or contact with someone with a travel history to Wuhan” and “Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it” This leads me to believe that perhaps he was trying to have it both ways: - flag the need for action - keep a major player from “losing face”. I don’t envy his job, or in fact any of the UN organisations. You’re at the mercy of your big funders; you’re trying to influence hundreds of countries who’d rather focus on their own internal politics; you have no actual power. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. How on earth do you move the needle at all in that kind of environment?
    - ColanR 6y ago
      His job is world health. If he put "saving face" for China, or trying to keep his job, over recommending a travel ban to prevent the spread of a deadly virus, then he is incompetent and he failed to prevent deaths... and my point still stands.
      - phs318u 6y ago
        Your point only stands if the health ministers of the countries receiving that advice, had no responsibility for the advice they gave their own governments. Or do you believe that nation states bear no responsibility for their own decisions? Remember, WHO has no actual authority to impose anything. National governments do. Look to your own health minister and leaders for where to sheet the blame. Anybody hearing or reading that speech above that didn’t act - especially given all the actual technical guidance being offered by the WHO at the same time - should be looking in the mirror. A point I made elsewhere still stands. From the same source of advice - WHO - multiple nation states took different courses of action. Why do you think that is? They surely can’t all attribute their decisions to WHO otherwise all countries would have acted the same way. Clearly that’s not what’s happened.
- busymom0 6y ago
  > found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 This was after Taiwan's warnings in December which they ignored.
streb-lo 6y ago
This is a hilariously revisionist take people are trotting out. Forget the WHO for a second (which remember was politically cast adrift by the US when they refused to participate in it.) The news coming out of Europe/Iran/China had lay people in the US concerned by late February -- yet the American Government did everything it could to belittle or otherwise diminish the threat. Now it wants to turn around and suggest that it's actions are to be blamed by the WHO? What happened to self-responsibility? Give me a break.
- wolco 6y ago
  You are making a different point that the US could have acted sooner in late Feb. Before the news coming out of Europe and Iran things were breaking in China. The 4chan guys were all over it way back in Jan. Remember the Chinese Dr whistle blower who got punished for letting the truth? He was dead by Jan 20-22.. at this point the WHO was downplaying, later praising China and telling everyone not to wear a mask. The WHO response caused the outbreak to get out of control in Europe and elsewhere long before it hit North America.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  To be fair, the WHO was advocating against travel restrictions, and against calling what was clearly a global pandemic as such. If they’d switched tune to ‘close your borders’ and ‘this is a global pandemic’ earlier you would have seen some different responses.
jerf 6y ago
"4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January," I think the thread under this is kinda missing a deeper point. 4chan was taking this virus seriously back in January. I also wouldn't be surprised that 4chan was the original origin of "it's just a flu, bro" meme, which is to say, plenty of 4chan and related communities was also mocking the idea of taking it seriously. The point of free speech isn't that the speech will freely contain only the truth. The point of free speech is we need that debate to find the truth. Declaring the WHO as the one and only source of truth is a bad idea, even before we observe the fact that it has manifestly made numerous incorrect statements within the past couple of months, and that reasonably people can question some of the things it is saying even now. There isn't an option where we get only pure, unfiltered truth. Sorry. That's life. But there is an option where we pretty much guarantee ourselves that we will not get the truth, and that option is declaring a single trusted source of truth who will somehow transcend the fact they are made up of falliable and potentially untrustworthy human beings to deliver you that truth.
anigbrowl 6y ago
4chan and terrorgram were also workshopping Corona-chan memes, entertaining the misconception that black people were immune to it, and trying to figure out ways to launch the boogaloo on the back of it. They take it seriously in the same way that a rotating drum full of ping-pong balls happens to contain the winning lottery numbers every week. Glomming on to novelty is is the defining trait of quasi-anonymous social networks.

by ColanR 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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deleted 6y ago

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phs318u 6y ago

Do you really believe that? Check archive.org. The WHO published info on CV including technical guidance for the health ministries of nation states, at least as early as January 24. It’s safe to assume that national delegates would have been in discussions with WHO ahead of this. Remember, there’s only one WHO and yet we have many different responses and outcomes in different countries. The only logical conclusion is that those nations who’s responses led to poor outcomes should look to their own interpretation of WHO advice and the decisions they themselves made, as the cause of poor outcomes.

enaaem 6y ago
In Februari the WHO urges to not impose travel bans: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-chief-says-widespread-travel-bans-not-needed-to-beat-china-virus-idUSKBN1ZX1H3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-chie... Nations who handled the crisis the best, imposed travel bans early on and were criticised by the WHO. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china-coronavirus-is-officially-an-international-emergency/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china...
- phs318u 6y ago
  His actual speech (that Reuter’s reported on). https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov) https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... The key sentence that Tedros is being criticised for is: “First, there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.” However, in the same speech: “ we must all act together now to limit further spread. The vast majority of cases outside China have a travel history to Wuhan, or contact with someone with a travel history to Wuhan” and “Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it” This leads me to believe that perhaps he was trying to have it both ways: - flag the need for action - keep a major player from “losing face”. I don’t envy his job, or in fact any of the UN organisations. You’re at the mercy of your big funders; you’re trying to influence hundreds of countries who’d rather focus on their own internal politics; you have no actual power. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. How on earth do you move the needle at all in that kind of environment?
  - ColanR 6y ago
    His job is world health. If he put "saving face" for China, or trying to keep his job, over recommending a travel ban to prevent the spread of a deadly virus, then he is incompetent and he failed to prevent deaths... and my point still stands.
    - phs318u 6y ago
      Your point only stands if the health ministers of the countries receiving that advice, had no responsibility for the advice they gave their own governments. Or do you believe that nation states bear no responsibility for their own decisions? Remember, WHO has no actual authority to impose anything. National governments do. Look to your own health minister and leaders for where to sheet the blame. Anybody hearing or reading that speech above that didn’t act - especially given all the actual technical guidance being offered by the WHO at the same time - should be looking in the mirror. A point I made elsewhere still stands. From the same source of advice - WHO - multiple nation states took different courses of action. Why do you think that is? They surely can’t all attribute their decisions to WHO otherwise all countries would have acted the same way. Clearly that’s not what’s happened.
busymom0 6y ago
> found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 This was after Taiwan's warnings in December which they ignored.

streb-lo 6y ago

This is a hilariously revisionist take people are trotting out. Forget the WHO for a second (which remember was politically cast adrift by the US when they refused to participate in it.) The news coming out of Europe/Iran/China had lay people in the US concerned by late February -- yet the American Government did everything it could to belittle or otherwise diminish the threat. Now it wants to turn around and suggest that it's actions are to be blamed by the WHO? What happened to self-responsibility? Give me a break.

wolco 6y ago
You are making a different point that the US could have acted sooner in late Feb. Before the news coming out of Europe and Iran things were breaking in China. The 4chan guys were all over it way back in Jan. Remember the Chinese Dr whistle blower who got punished for letting the truth? He was dead by Jan 20-22.. at this point the WHO was downplaying, later praising China and telling everyone not to wear a mask. The WHO response caused the outbreak to get out of control in Europe and elsewhere long before it hit North America.
Aeolun 6y ago
To be fair, the WHO was advocating against travel restrictions, and against calling what was clearly a global pandemic as such. If they’d switched tune to ‘close your borders’ and ‘this is a global pandemic’ earlier you would have seen some different responses.

jerf 6y ago

"4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January," I think the thread under this is kinda missing a deeper point. 4chan was taking this virus seriously back in January. I also wouldn't be surprised that 4chan was the original origin of "it's just a flu, bro" meme, which is to say, plenty of 4chan and related communities was also mocking the idea of taking it seriously. The point of free speech isn't that the speech will freely contain only the truth. The point of free speech is we need that debate to find the truth. Declaring the WHO as the one and only source of truth is a bad idea, even before we observe the fact that it has manifestly made numerous incorrect statements within the past couple of months, and that reasonably people can question some of the things it is saying even now. There isn't an option where we get only pure, unfiltered truth. Sorry. That's life. But there is an option where we pretty much guarantee ourselves that we will not get the truth, and that option is declaring a single trusted source of truth who will somehow transcend the fact they are made up of falliable and potentially untrustworthy human beings to deliver you that truth.

anigbrowl 6y ago

4chan and terrorgram were also workshopping Corona-chan memes, entertaining the misconception that black people were immune to it, and trying to figure out ways to launch the boogaloo on the back of it. They take it seriously in the same way that a rotating drum full of ping-pong balls happens to contain the winning lottery numbers every week. Glomming on to novelty is is the defining trait of quasi-anonymous social networks.