5 ms·

How in the world can you really say or think that? This was the WHO's official stance in January 2020: "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese auth

by esaym 6y ago

How in the world can you really say or think that? This was the WHO's official stance in January 2020: "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan" If that isn't clear evidence that they are beyond useless, then I don't know what is.

iron0013 6y ago
The WHO declared coronavirus a global health emergency in January. Meanwhile Trump said “We have it totally under control” in January. Which of those perspectives proved true?
dylan-m 6y ago
Taking that quote at face value: at the time, they trusted the Chinese authorities. This isn't terribly unreasonable. I think in retrospect we can say, yeah, they obviously shouldn't have trusted the Chinese authorities then, and they definitely shouldn't trust them in the future. But at the time, the idea that trusting them was a bad idea was more a thing people said than something backed by solid evidence. Alas, sometimes large bureaucracies take a while to catch up with common sense. (See also, fax machines). There actually is solid, undeniable evidence now, which is great! Let's see how they apply that in the future.
- loopz 6y ago
  Do we have evidence though, still? Remember, this is a hoax, Right? Someone didn't listen to common sense and the available Intelligence also.
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    >Do we have evidence though, still? Remember, this is a hoax, Right? Trump did not call COVID19 a hoax. He called what Democrats said about his administration's response to the pandemic a "hoax", akin to the "impeachment hoax" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/joe-biden-trump-coronavirus-hoax-claim https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/joe-biden-trum...).
    - loopz 6y ago
      A somewhat fair point, but it was also mixed with poor choice of words and general inaccuracies at the time: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re...
    - robotron 6y ago
      Are you saying there wasn't a campaign to call the virus a hoax?
- smileypete 6y ago
  'Health officials in Taipei said they alerted the WHO at the end of December about the risk of human-to-human transmission of the new virus but said its concerns were not passed on to other countries.' https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68 https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6... [paywalled - but going via a google search gets round it] 'Wuhan virus probably is spreading between people (2020-01-04) Wuhan officials also said on Friday that no evidence of human to human transmission has been found so far. But Ho said it is possible that the virus can be passed from person to person, and this is likely to have already happened in the Wuhan outbreak.' https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1500994-20200104.htm https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1500994-20200104.h... 'Wuhan pneumonia: what we know about the new virus and how you can stop yourself getting sick (2020-1-9) Dr Ho Pak-leung, from the University of Hong Kong, said the new coronavirus was believed to be spread through droplets. "The public should wear disposable surgical masks in crowded places," Ho said. "They should also clean their hands frequently." https://today.line.me/hk/article/Wuhan+pneumonia+what+we+know+about+the+new+virus+and+how+you+can+stop+yourself+getting+sick-PoWrD5 https://today.line.me/hk/article/Wuhan+pneumonia+what+we+kno... 'Q&A with HK microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung who helped confirm coronavirus' human spread Tell us what you saw in Wuhan (on 17th Jan). Let me tell you what I think is the truth. All the places we visited in Wuhan looked like they were putting on a show. Whatever we asked them, they answered as if they had prepared hard with well-thought-out replies. However, Zhong Nanshan was extremely sharp - he kept asking follow-up questions, like: "Is there anything else?" "Are there any more cases?" "Is it really like you're saying, just that many cases?" Eventually, under pressure, they relented and told us it seemed that there was one patient in the neurosurgery department who had infected 14 medical workers. But they also said those medical staff had not had their diagnoses confirmed. ... We met a deputy-level national leader and officials from the National Health Commission. They were all quite frank. Our expert group reported that the situation was severe, and there must have been cases of human transmission, and that preventive measures needed to be taken immediately.' https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/exclusive-qa-with-hong-kong-microbiologist-yuen-kwok-yung-who-helped-confirm https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/exclusive-qa-wit...
  - vonmoltke 6y ago
    > 'Health officials in Taipei said they alerted the WHO at the end of December about the risk of human-to-human transmission of the new virus but said its concerns were not passed on to other countries.' > https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68 https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6... The Guardian disagrees: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/caught-in-a-superpower-struggle-the-inside-story-of-the-whos-response-to-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/caught-in-a-su... > “Why did the WHO Ignore an email from Taiwanese health officials in late December alerting them to the possibility that coronvirus could be transmitted between humans?” the president asked in a tweet on Friday, echoing a claim made by Taipei. > However, the Taiwanese email appears to have made no such warning. It was sent from Taiwan’s CDC to its WHO liaison officer on 31 December, hours after the first official report of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan were published online. > According to the text provided to the Guardian, the email said: “News resources today indicate that at least seven, atypical pneumonia cases were reported in China.” > It restates the details of Chinese report, adding “I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us.” > The email did not contain new information, and certainly nothing about human-to-human transmission. The WHO had picked up the same report on the night of 30 December and was urgently seeking more information. On 1 January it activated its incident management support team, putting the organisation on an emergency footing. I feel like this whole "it said/it said" thing with all these various organizations and their shifting messages is going to take years, at least, to disentangle.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  Taiwan did so well because they knew that Chinese authorities couldn't be trusted; and they shared their info with WHO that they suspected human-to-human transmission very early, only for it to be ignored. There was plenty of reason to not trust Chinese authorities, they have an obvious track record
perl4ever 6y ago
Suppose you made a list of all of the scandals or dumb things that a given state government or federal agency had been involved in, and then said it should be abolished. That's not a normal thing; nobody would take you seriously.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
You have to go with the evidence you have at the time. That’s the way it works.
jrochkind1 6y ago
You can only act on the evidence and information you have, and they were wrong in early January. Being wrong isn't necessarily a sign of uselesness, even the most useful are sometimes wrong. But on January 30th, WHO said there was human to human transmission, and it was dangerous, officially declared a public health emergency. At what point would you say CDC started taking it seriously?
- LyndsySimon 6y ago
  It was clear based on the Chinese response much earlier that it was spreading widely. > At what point would you say CDC started taking it seriously? I’ll let you know.
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    The WHO isn't an intelligence agency who has analysts reviewing "based on the Chinese response, we think something is going on other than what they say, and should alert the world to it." That's not what their job is, they should not be faulted for not doing it. The alarm was not being widely sounded by anyone but the WHO before then either. (Actual nation states DO have intelligence agencies who could have been analyzing this threat, btw). However, on January 30th when they did sound the alarm -- countries that paid attention to this and took the threat seriously then are, still, doing much better than countries that waited months to take it seriously, or which still aren't taking it seriously. This shows that the WHO in fact did something useful. The U.S. pulling out of the WHO is meant to distract from the fact that U.S. didn't take it seriously even when the WHO did sound the alarm, somehow blaming the WHO for the U.S. ignoring the WHO. Eliminating the WHO and having no world health organization at all wouldn't fix this problem, and would harm rather than help the global capacity for pandemic response. Perhaps they should have sent out an alarm earlier and not doing so was some kind of incomptency (I'm not convinced, but perhaps), but they still in fact played an important role and did send out the alarm far far before the U.S. paid any attention to it; sending out the alarm earlier wouldn't have made much difference for the US, we would have just had more time to ignore it. I mean, I guess if the U.S. took the money they were giving to the WHO and instead spent it on re-funding the infectious disease monitoring and research in China that we used to fund but stopped at least that would sound like trying to improve monitoring efficacy (whether it's a wise way to do it or not), instead of just bullshit. But we all know that's the opposite of what is happening, in fact, they recently cancelled MORE US-funded research on infectious diseases in China.

by esaym 6y ago

iron0013 6y ago

The WHO declared coronavirus a global health emergency in January. Meanwhile Trump said “We have it totally under control” in January. Which of those perspectives proved true?

dylan-m 6y ago

Taking that quote at face value: at the time, they trusted the Chinese authorities. This isn't terribly unreasonable. I think in retrospect we can say, yeah, they obviously shouldn't have trusted the Chinese authorities then, and they definitely shouldn't trust them in the future. But at the time, the idea that trusting them was a bad idea was more a thing people said than something backed by solid evidence. Alas, sometimes large bureaucracies take a while to catch up with common sense. (See also, fax machines). There actually is solid, undeniable evidence now, which is great! Let's see how they apply that in the future.

loopz 6y ago
Do we have evidence though, still? Remember, this is a hoax, Right? Someone didn't listen to common sense and the available Intelligence also.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >Do we have evidence though, still? Remember, this is a hoax, Right? Trump did not call COVID19 a hoax. He called what Democrats said about his administration's response to the pandemic a "hoax", akin to the "impeachment hoax" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/joe-biden-trump-coronavirus-hoax-claim https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/joe-biden-trum...).
  - loopz 6y ago
    A somewhat fair point, but it was also mixed with poor choice of words and general inaccuracies at the time: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re...
  - robotron 6y ago
    Are you saying there wasn't a campaign to call the virus a hoax?
smileypete 6y ago
'Health officials in Taipei said they alerted the WHO at the end of December about the risk of human-to-human transmission of the new virus but said its concerns were not passed on to other countries.' https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68 https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6... [paywalled - but going via a google search gets round it] 'Wuhan virus probably is spreading between people (2020-01-04) Wuhan officials also said on Friday that no evidence of human to human transmission has been found so far. But Ho said it is possible that the virus can be passed from person to person, and this is likely to have already happened in the Wuhan outbreak.' https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1500994-20200104.htm https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1500994-20200104.h... 'Wuhan pneumonia: what we know about the new virus and how you can stop yourself getting sick (2020-1-9) Dr Ho Pak-leung, from the University of Hong Kong, said the new coronavirus was believed to be spread through droplets. "The public should wear disposable surgical masks in crowded places," Ho said. "They should also clean their hands frequently." https://today.line.me/hk/article/Wuhan+pneumonia+what+we+know+about+the+new+virus+and+how+you+can+stop+yourself+getting+sick-PoWrD5 https://today.line.me/hk/article/Wuhan+pneumonia+what+we+kno... 'Q&A with HK microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung who helped confirm coronavirus' human spread Tell us what you saw in Wuhan (on 17th Jan). Let me tell you what I think is the truth. All the places we visited in Wuhan looked like they were putting on a show. Whatever we asked them, they answered as if they had prepared hard with well-thought-out replies. However, Zhong Nanshan was extremely sharp - he kept asking follow-up questions, like: "Is there anything else?" "Are there any more cases?" "Is it really like you're saying, just that many cases?" Eventually, under pressure, they relented and told us it seemed that there was one patient in the neurosurgery department who had infected 14 medical workers. But they also said those medical staff had not had their diagnoses confirmed. ... We met a deputy-level national leader and officials from the National Health Commission. They were all quite frank. Our expert group reported that the situation was severe, and there must have been cases of human transmission, and that preventive measures needed to be taken immediately.' https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/exclusive-qa-with-hong-kong-microbiologist-yuen-kwok-yung-who-helped-confirm https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/exclusive-qa-wit...
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  > 'Health officials in Taipei said they alerted the WHO at the end of December about the risk of human-to-human transmission of the new virus but said its concerns were not passed on to other countries.' > https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68 https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6... The Guardian disagrees: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/caught-in-a-superpower-struggle-the-inside-story-of-the-whos-response-to-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/caught-in-a-su... > “Why did the WHO Ignore an email from Taiwanese health officials in late December alerting them to the possibility that coronvirus could be transmitted between humans?” the president asked in a tweet on Friday, echoing a claim made by Taipei. > However, the Taiwanese email appears to have made no such warning. It was sent from Taiwan’s CDC to its WHO liaison officer on 31 December, hours after the first official report of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan were published online. > According to the text provided to the Guardian, the email said: “News resources today indicate that at least seven, atypical pneumonia cases were reported in China.” > It restates the details of Chinese report, adding “I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us.” > The email did not contain new information, and certainly nothing about human-to-human transmission. The WHO had picked up the same report on the night of 30 December and was urgently seeking more information. On 1 January it activated its incident management support team, putting the organisation on an emergency footing. I feel like this whole "it said/it said" thing with all these various organizations and their shifting messages is going to take years, at least, to disentangle.
ajkdhcb2 6y ago
Taiwan did so well because they knew that Chinese authorities couldn't be trusted; and they shared their info with WHO that they suspected human-to-human transmission very early, only for it to be ignored. There was plenty of reason to not trust Chinese authorities, they have an obvious track record

perl4ever 6y ago

Suppose you made a list of all of the scandals or dumb things that a given state government or federal agency had been involved in, and then said it should be abolished. That's not a normal thing; nobody would take you seriously.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

You have to go with the evidence you have at the time. That’s the way it works.

jrochkind1 6y ago

You can only act on the evidence and information you have, and they were wrong in early January. Being wrong isn't necessarily a sign of uselesness, even the most useful are sometimes wrong. But on January 30th, WHO said there was human to human transmission, and it was dangerous, officially declared a public health emergency. At what point would you say CDC started taking it seriously?

LyndsySimon 6y ago
It was clear based on the Chinese response much earlier that it was spreading widely. > At what point would you say CDC started taking it seriously? I’ll let you know.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  The WHO isn't an intelligence agency who has analysts reviewing "based on the Chinese response, we think something is going on other than what they say, and should alert the world to it." That's not what their job is, they should not be faulted for not doing it. The alarm was not being widely sounded by anyone but the WHO before then either. (Actual nation states DO have intelligence agencies who could have been analyzing this threat, btw). However, on January 30th when they did sound the alarm -- countries that paid attention to this and took the threat seriously then are, still, doing much better than countries that waited months to take it seriously, or which still aren't taking it seriously. This shows that the WHO in fact did something useful. The U.S. pulling out of the WHO is meant to distract from the fact that U.S. didn't take it seriously even when the WHO did sound the alarm, somehow blaming the WHO for the U.S. ignoring the WHO. Eliminating the WHO and having no world health organization at all wouldn't fix this problem, and would harm rather than help the global capacity for pandemic response. Perhaps they should have sent out an alarm earlier and not doing so was some kind of incomptency (I'm not convinced, but perhaps), but they still in fact played an important role and did send out the alarm far far before the U.S. paid any attention to it; sending out the alarm earlier wouldn't have made much difference for the US, we would have just had more time to ignore it. I mean, I guess if the U.S. took the money they were giving to the WHO and instead spent it on re-funding the infectious disease monitoring and research in China that we used to fund but stopped at least that would sound like trying to improve monitoring efficacy (whether it's a wise way to do it or not), instead of just bullshit. But we all know that's the opposite of what is happening, in fact, they recently cancelled MORE US-funded research on infectious diseases in China.