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We get your point, that you expect the public to be more wrong than the authorities. Except in this case, all of the foremost authorities have been wrong repea

We get your point, that you expect the public to be more wrong than the authorities. Except in this case, all of the foremost authorities have been wrong repeatedly and in ways that delayed productive caution, and extended unproductive policy. More of WHO's early guidance was dangerously misleading or false than was true; they actively denied every important observation which turned out to be critical to getting a handle on the virus. Ordinary members of the public were ahead of the WHO for months in disseminating factual information and productive advice.

throwaway2048 6y ago
Its completely possible for the authorities to be wrong, its also completely possible for charlatan opportunists and insane people to make a bad situation much worse.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  > Its completely possible for the authorities to be wrong, its also completely possible for charlatan opportunists and insane people to make a bad situation much worse. In this case, the foremost authority was so wrong that no charlatan opportunist with reach outside the “maybe I should drink bleach” set of the public did any worse than them, and a majority of the “non-authoritative” sources I consulted this year got the important facts (evidence of human-to-human spread, a long tail of very long incubation periods, difficult-to-ascertain asymptomatic carriers, asymptomatic transmission, unlikely to have been transmitted in a purely natural setting) straight as soon as information was available, while WHO was still denying these things without evidence to back up their denials. Added to clarify: For example, if you watched Tim Pool's (political commentator, often struggles to read and understand things he's covering) podcast, he was able to tell you early this year that some reports saw the virus incubating for upward of two weeks, and transmissible during at least some of that time; and if I recall correctly, at that same moment, the WHO's official position was that there was “no evidence of human to human transmission”, a statement that would be irresponsible even if it were true at the time. While the WHO was denying early concerns that it could spread through aerosols, the same podcast was presenting the evidence for this, and cautioning people to be aware of it (but not to panic). If you ask me, this random independent podcast handled this subject so much more responsibly than the mainstream media (who were at the time saying that it was no worse than the flu, making fun of people for being concerned about it) and the WHO (who were basically advising people to ignore evidence entirely, and not take precautions, until they deemed it sufficient).
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    Yeah that's why there are mass protests against lock-down that are overwhelmingly attended by hardcore conspiracy theorists (go watch some interviews of these people). The WHO never once denied that human to human transmission was possible, the only thing they said very early on was that there was not enough evidence to conclusively support it yet. Somehow this has been twisted online (by people like you) that the WHO had some kind of campaign to deny fact, and all the nutcases on youtube were infact the correct ones.
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      > Yeah that's why there are mass protests against lock-down that are overwhelmingly attended by hardcore conspiracy theorists (go watch some interviews of these people). It may be the case that people willing to participate in a mass gathering are not concerned about the virus, but the majority of ordinary Americans are not for sustaining the full force of lockdown measures. Also the incentives are a total mess, when it comes to selecting people to interview at a protest; especially when most news outlets seem, at the moment, to have an editorial interest in justifying the lockdowns in their full extent (meanwhile journalists, unlike most Americans, are not themselves subject to the lockdown orders anyway). P.S. there's a distinction between the subset of people who don't think the “non essential” economy should be locked down indefinitely, and the subset of people who will go out without masks to attend a mass gathering in protest. The latter is necessarily a fringe minority.
      - Androider 6y ago
        On what do you base your opinion that the "the majority of ordinary Americans are not for sustaining the lockdown measures"? All the polling strongly suggests the opposite, the vast majority of Americans are very concerned about the virus and support the lockdown, and the protesters represent a small fringe. For a funny take, see https://xkcd.com/2305 https://xkcd.com/2305
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
rebuilder 6y ago
Some members of the public disseminated factual information. Other members disseminated dangerous lies. On balance, I think the WHO is more likely to get it right than the general public. At least their message is more consistent.
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  I think the WHO preferring a consistent message above a nuanced and factually more correct one is exactly the problem many people have with them as an organisation. They've chosen the easy path at every step, and it's come back to bite them in the ass.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  WHO was literally saying that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, well after evidence was presented to them. There was nothing consistent about their messaging, nor was there nuance, they had the worst of both worlds. It would be one thing for them to say nothing on the matter, while sorting through conflicting reports, but instead they presented a narrative that they are unlikely to have sincerely believed at the time; that is, they were probably not just wrong, but lying. That is, given what we know now, they probably did not believe what they were saying to the public (though their lower-level expert disclosures were generally fine). At the top of the WHO, there is a hot-headed political activist who lashes out at people for criticizing him, rather than addressing the criticism. He has a well-documented political and ideological bond with the Communist Party of China, and a history of mismanaging outbreaks that is as long as his tenure at the WHO. The WHO was not consistent. It is clear, to anyone who went back and compared notes, they got it wrong more often than the popular sources in the general public. To put it bluntly, if you got your information about this outbreak from Joe Rogan (comedian podcaster), rather than the WHO, you would have had a more consistent perspective on the outbreak, and gotten there as much as a month earlier.

throwaway2048 6y ago

Its completely possible for the authorities to be wrong, its also completely possible for charlatan opportunists and insane people to make a bad situation much worse.

microcolonel 6y ago
> Its completely possible for the authorities to be wrong, its also completely possible for charlatan opportunists and insane people to make a bad situation much worse. In this case, the foremost authority was so wrong that no charlatan opportunist with reach outside the “maybe I should drink bleach” set of the public did any worse than them, and a majority of the “non-authoritative” sources I consulted this year got the important facts (evidence of human-to-human spread, a long tail of very long incubation periods, difficult-to-ascertain asymptomatic carriers, asymptomatic transmission, unlikely to have been transmitted in a purely natural setting) straight as soon as information was available, while WHO was still denying these things without evidence to back up their denials. Added to clarify: For example, if you watched Tim Pool's (political commentator, often struggles to read and understand things he's covering) podcast, he was able to tell you early this year that some reports saw the virus incubating for upward of two weeks, and transmissible during at least some of that time; and if I recall correctly, at that same moment, the WHO's official position was that there was “no evidence of human to human transmission”, a statement that would be irresponsible even if it were true at the time. While the WHO was denying early concerns that it could spread through aerosols, the same podcast was presenting the evidence for this, and cautioning people to be aware of it (but not to panic). If you ask me, this random independent podcast handled this subject so much more responsibly than the mainstream media (who were at the time saying that it was no worse than the flu, making fun of people for being concerned about it) and the WHO (who were basically advising people to ignore evidence entirely, and not take precautions, until they deemed it sufficient).
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  Yeah that's why there are mass protests against lock-down that are overwhelmingly attended by hardcore conspiracy theorists (go watch some interviews of these people). The WHO never once denied that human to human transmission was possible, the only thing they said very early on was that there was not enough evidence to conclusively support it yet. Somehow this has been twisted online (by people like you) that the WHO had some kind of campaign to deny fact, and all the nutcases on youtube were infact the correct ones.
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    > Yeah that's why there are mass protests against lock-down that are overwhelmingly attended by hardcore conspiracy theorists (go watch some interviews of these people). It may be the case that people willing to participate in a mass gathering are not concerned about the virus, but the majority of ordinary Americans are not for sustaining the full force of lockdown measures. Also the incentives are a total mess, when it comes to selecting people to interview at a protest; especially when most news outlets seem, at the moment, to have an editorial interest in justifying the lockdowns in their full extent (meanwhile journalists, unlike most Americans, are not themselves subject to the lockdown orders anyway). P.S. there's a distinction between the subset of people who don't think the “non essential” economy should be locked down indefinitely, and the subset of people who will go out without masks to attend a mass gathering in protest. The latter is necessarily a fringe minority.
    - Androider 6y ago
      On what do you base your opinion that the "the majority of ordinary Americans are not for sustaining the lockdown measures"? All the polling strongly suggests the opposite, the vast majority of Americans are very concerned about the virus and support the lockdown, and the protesters represent a small fringe. For a funny take, see https://xkcd.com/2305 https://xkcd.com/2305
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

rebuilder 6y ago

Some members of the public disseminated factual information. Other members disseminated dangerous lies. On balance, I think the WHO is more likely to get it right than the general public. At least their message is more consistent.

leadingthenet 6y ago
I think the WHO preferring a consistent message above a nuanced and factually more correct one is exactly the problem many people have with them as an organisation. They've chosen the easy path at every step, and it's come back to bite them in the ass.
microcolonel 6y ago
WHO was literally saying that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, well after evidence was presented to them. There was nothing consistent about their messaging, nor was there nuance, they had the worst of both worlds. It would be one thing for them to say nothing on the matter, while sorting through conflicting reports, but instead they presented a narrative that they are unlikely to have sincerely believed at the time; that is, they were probably not just wrong, but lying. That is, given what we know now, they probably did not believe what they were saying to the public (though their lower-level expert disclosures were generally fine). At the top of the WHO, there is a hot-headed political activist who lashes out at people for criticizing him, rather than addressing the criticism. He has a well-documented political and ideological bond with the Communist Party of China, and a history of mismanaging outbreaks that is as long as his tenure at the WHO. The WHO was not consistent. It is clear, to anyone who went back and compared notes, they got it wrong more often than the popular sources in the general public. To put it bluntly, if you got your information about this outbreak from Joe Rogan (comedian podcaster), rather than the WHO, you would have had a more consistent perspective on the outbreak, and gotten there as much as a month earlier.