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Unpopular opinion (for HN maybe :) - the WHO, which does not solely deal with infectious diseases, much to the world's chagrin, is doing the best job that they

Unpopular opinion (for HN maybe :) - the WHO, which does not solely deal with infectious diseases, much to the world's chagrin, is doing the best job that they can considering the situation. On average the advice from the WHO on a whole range of medical topics has been nothing but excellent, and I am loathe to discount them entirely based on a few press statements that have been taken wildly out of context by the media and the internet as a whole. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when HN unfailingly dogpiles onto the WHO in yet another thread. Are people missing the forest for the trees?

ciguy 6y ago
Sorry but this is just hopelessly naive. Have you seen their handling of Taiwan, their statements parroting CCP propaganda in January claiming the virus was not transmissible between humans, their condemnation of travel restrictions as xenophobic? I could go on.....
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- EE84M3i 6y ago
  All international organizations have the same handling of Taiwan. It's not a WHO specific issue, it extends to basically every other similar intergovernmental organization you can think of, even the ones that aren't specialized agencies of the UN (which the WHO is), like INTERPOL.
pfortuny 6y ago
Apart from the impossibility of doing the “best” (as there is no such thing except in mathematics), it is not a frw press statements. It is knee-jerking before China. Like always.
Nursie 6y ago
I wouldn't want to discount them entirely, but their recent foray into TCM has left me less than entirely on-side. On average I'm sure they do a great job, but they're not perfect and should be pushing back against damaging woo like this.
new2628 6y ago
I don't think "average advice" is a good metric here -- if you play russian roulette you will "win" on average or even in most cases. What matters is protection from downside which is where the WHO failed when they said the disease was not transmissible between humans and travel restrictions were not necessary.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
They are doing a good job and they have been preparing for such a pandemic for years. Countries that are faring best today are those that have worked with the WHO and heard its advice.
- ciguy 6y ago
  Can you list even a single thing they have done a good job of in their handling of this crisis? And which countries are you referring to exactly which have worked with them and are doing well? They won't even acknowledge Taiwan which is handling this better than almost every other country.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Taiwan's handling of Covid-19 is based on WHO's advice. Same for Korea. They experienced SARS, MERS (for Korea), and prepared. The WHO have been working on pandemic scenarios for years. They worked out plans to prepare and respond, they alerted on the risk. The attacks against them are crass political games by desperate and inept politicians.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > The attacks against them are crass political games by desperate and inept politicians. Not necessarily inept as politicians, though clearly so at governing; they seem to know their audience quite well.
  - ryanwaggoner 6y ago
    Sure, almost everything on this timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_... They setup a response team within a day or two of hearing from China about a handful of atypical pneumonia cases, they notified all member states within a few days of that (including of the risk of human-to-human transmission), and within another week they had issued comprehensive testing guidance and asked a German team to design a test. This was all within the first couple weeks.
jansan 6y ago
Unpopular opinion indeed!
thdrdt 6y ago
I'm also glad we have a WHO as central point of information and knowledge. But the WHO could have been more careful with how they put out information. For example: "...no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission,...". This was a true statement, there was no evidence at that time. But they also knew what was going on in China. They could have asked themselves: what if it is human-to-human transmittable? Then they would have never used those words, because those words downplayed the potential risks. I agree with you the media (and governments) blew this up later when the evidence was there. The WHO never said it was not human-to-human transmittable, but words were taken out of context and suddenly the WHO was to blame.
- blackoil 6y ago
  The problem is leaders should not be basing decisions on a tweet but by listening to experts they have at hand. e.g. someone like Fauci would have told what that tweet means. The second point, none of the nations did do anything different on 23rd Jan when WHO confirmed the H2H transmission and its severity, so how did that tweet made any difference?
- jml7c5 6y ago
  It is worth noting thst the @WHO account tweeted clarification just a few hours later. Whoever made that tweet did not consider their audience correctly, and the resulting misinterpretation is partially on them. But the way it's been spun as some sort of smoking gun is shocking given it is so easy to debunk.
blackoil 6y ago
Not very unpopular, any rational actor would not blame WHO for a lot, CCP maybe for few things. The US has screwed up big time for the richest nation, it's state and central govt and people all have acted completely orthogonal of common sense and now they need a scapegoat.

ciguy 6y ago

Sorry but this is just hopelessly naive. Have you seen their handling of Taiwan, their statements parroting CCP propaganda in January claiming the virus was not transmissible between humans, their condemnation of travel restrictions as xenophobic? I could go on.....

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
EE84M3i 6y ago
All international organizations have the same handling of Taiwan. It's not a WHO specific issue, it extends to basically every other similar intergovernmental organization you can think of, even the ones that aren't specialized agencies of the UN (which the WHO is), like INTERPOL.

pfortuny 6y ago

Apart from the impossibility of doing the “best” (as there is no such thing except in mathematics), it is not a frw press statements. It is knee-jerking before China. Like always.

Nursie 6y ago

I wouldn't want to discount them entirely, but their recent foray into TCM has left me less than entirely on-side. On average I'm sure they do a great job, but they're not perfect and should be pushing back against damaging woo like this.

new2628 6y ago

I don't think "average advice" is a good metric here -- if you play russian roulette you will "win" on average or even in most cases. What matters is protection from downside which is where the WHO failed when they said the disease was not transmissible between humans and travel restrictions were not necessary.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

They are doing a good job and they have been preparing for such a pandemic for years. Countries that are faring best today are those that have worked with the WHO and heard its advice.

ciguy 6y ago
Can you list even a single thing they have done a good job of in their handling of this crisis? And which countries are you referring to exactly which have worked with them and are doing well? They won't even acknowledge Taiwan which is handling this better than almost every other country.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Taiwan's handling of Covid-19 is based on WHO's advice. Same for Korea. They experienced SARS, MERS (for Korea), and prepared. The WHO have been working on pandemic scenarios for years. They worked out plans to prepare and respond, they alerted on the risk. The attacks against them are crass political games by desperate and inept politicians.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The attacks against them are crass political games by desperate and inept politicians. Not necessarily inept as politicians, though clearly so at governing; they seem to know their audience quite well.
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  Sure, almost everything on this timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_... They setup a response team within a day or two of hearing from China about a handful of atypical pneumonia cases, they notified all member states within a few days of that (including of the risk of human-to-human transmission), and within another week they had issued comprehensive testing guidance and asked a German team to design a test. This was all within the first couple weeks.

jansan 6y ago

Unpopular opinion indeed!

thdrdt 6y ago

I'm also glad we have a WHO as central point of information and knowledge. But the WHO could have been more careful with how they put out information. For example: "...no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission,...". This was a true statement, there was no evidence at that time. But they also knew what was going on in China. They could have asked themselves: what if it is human-to-human transmittable? Then they would have never used those words, because those words downplayed the potential risks. I agree with you the media (and governments) blew this up later when the evidence was there. The WHO never said it was not human-to-human transmittable, but words were taken out of context and suddenly the WHO was to blame.

blackoil 6y ago
The problem is leaders should not be basing decisions on a tweet but by listening to experts they have at hand. e.g. someone like Fauci would have told what that tweet means. The second point, none of the nations did do anything different on 23rd Jan when WHO confirmed the H2H transmission and its severity, so how did that tweet made any difference?
jml7c5 6y ago
It is worth noting thst the @WHO account tweeted clarification just a few hours later. Whoever made that tweet did not consider their audience correctly, and the resulting misinterpretation is partially on them. But the way it's been spun as some sort of smoking gun is shocking given it is so easy to debunk.

blackoil 6y ago

Not very unpopular, any rational actor would not blame WHO for a lot, CCP maybe for few things. The US has screwed up big time for the richest nation, it's state and central govt and people all have acted completely orthogonal of common sense and now they need a scapegoat.