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This has been flagged off the front-page, likely because it mentions the WHO. I haven't really been following the criticism of their handling of this all that c
by ryanwaggoner 6y ago
This has been flagged off the front-page, likely because it mentions the WHO. I haven't really been following the criticism of their handling of this all that closely, so this might be worth reading for others in the same boat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_...
This article seems to directly contradict some of the claims made by anti-WHO folks here. In particular, this portion of the timeline jumped out at me, contradicting the claim that the WHO was claiming no human-to-human transmission as late as early February:
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On 14 January, Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO told in a press briefing that "it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission"
The WHO recommended countries to take precautions due to the human-to-human transmission during earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks. On the same day, the WHO's Twitter account reported that "preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission".
On 20 January, the WHO released a tweet that it was "now very clear from the latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission" that has occurred, given that healthcare workers had been infected.
On 22 January, WHO issued a statement stating that the data "suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan", and called for more investigation.
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This certainly sounds to me like they initially said that we weren't seeing human-to-human transmission in mid-Jan, but within a week or so, the data was starting to show the opposite, and they said so.
What exactly is the controversy here?
- ghostDancer 6y agoUS media and some of right wing European media is charging against WHO because they have to blame someone. That way the can put all the death people numbers on WHO and not take any responsibility fro their handling of the situation.
- ryanwaggoner 6y agoI completely agree that there's a political element, but I'd like to hear from the individuals who are so up-in-arms about this as to why they personally are so aggrieved and how they interpret the facts to indicate such culpability on the WHO's part.
- ghostDancer 6y agoI can't help there, I suppose that is the same when someone feel attacked in their beliefs religious or political, some people get really aggressive about that.
- aorth 6y agoIndeed. The timeline speaks for itself, and it provides excellent sources in international media. There is a massive misinformation campaign going on in many countries.
- notahacker 6y agoA US administration which was still insisting that they were on the cusp of eliminating it in late March and is actively encouraging public disobedience of disease control measures for partisan reasons has decided it's the WHO's fault. This inevitably means discussion of their claims dominates the news cycle where many HN readers are based. [The fact the criticism is politically driven is also why people are focusing to political trivia like WHO treating One China as a reality like all other major national and transnational organizations and attributing positions actually made by Trump's domestic critics to the WHO, and paying less attention to the WHO's dubious stances which might have actually cost lives, such as their position on masks]
- JamesG124 6y agoOn Jan 15 in fact Wuhan government publicly said they identified a possible case of h2h from husband to wife https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/china-virus-spread-humans-68293043?__twitter_impression=true https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/china-virus-spre...