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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

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.

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.