> '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 conce

> '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.