> In early February China and the WHO was criticising countries for imposing travel restrictions Because the WHO does not generally condone travel restrictions

> In early February China and the WHO was criticising countries for imposing travel restrictions Because the WHO does not generally condone travel restrictions. Based on research on influenza pandemics, the WHO (and much of the epidemiology community) believe that travel restrictions are largely ineffective at stopping highly contagious, airborne diseases like influenza (and now CoVID-19). Beyond that, the entire framework of international health cooperation is set up to discourage travel restrictions. The International Health Regulations of 2005 state that any travel restrictions must be explicitly justified with scientific evidence, and periodically reviewed, and should be negotiated with the country that is on the receiving end of the restrictions. > China did everything they can to block information from going out. Except for issuing an official alert within days of discovering the first cases, releasing the genome, and stating that person-to-person transmission was a possibility. Even if one missed all that, shutting down a province of over 50 million people should have been a massive giveaway.