4 ms·

Yes. Take a look at table 1 in this WHO report from 2019 on non-pharmaceutical interventions: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/978924151

Yes. Take a look at table 1 in this WHO report from 2019 on non-pharmaceutical interventions: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789... "Quarantine of exposed individuals", "contact tracing", "border closures" and "internal travel restrictions" are "not recommended under any circumstances". "Home quarantine of exposed individuals to reduce transmission is not recommended because there is no obvious rationale for this measure, and there would be considerable difficulties in implementing it" And: "Border closures may be considered only by small island nations in severe pandemics and epidemics, but must be weighed against potentially serious economic consequences." Also: "There is also a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of improved respiratory etiquette and the use of face masks in community settings during influenza epidemics and pandemics." Finally: "This document will serve as a core component of WHO’s influenza prevention and control programme in community settings". Consider that this was published in 2019. Less than a year later every single position had been inverted, and epidemiologists / public health experts were telling the world that "the science" didn't just recommend all these things but outright required them. The masks issue is especially neuralgic because at the start they correctly stated that there was no evidence mask mandates would have any effect, then flipped their position overnight and asserted anyone who thought otherwise was ignoring science. As you correctly argue, there must be never be punishments for being wrong. However this is not a case of merely being wrong. No new evidence came to light to cause these flips in position, and in fact - as predicted - lockdowns, masks and so on have had no impact on the course of the pandemic. The models that were used to justify lockdowns were never validated against reality, and even contained severe coding errors: the people behind them have never admitted they did anything wrong here. Moreover the people who pushed hardest for lockdowns consistently claimed that there was "scientific consensus" behind what they were doing, even though just a year earlier the WHO itself had published a document stating that their recommendations should never be used in any circumstances! In other words, they were lying. And that's before we get to the fact that the WHO has a long track record of going into mad panics over diseases that are extremely mild or may not even exist at all. Der Spiegel, 2010, "Reconstruction of a Mass Hysteria: The Swine Flu Panic of 2009", https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/reconstruction-of-a-mass-hysteria-the-swine-flu-panic-of-2009-a-682613-amp.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/reconstruction-of... Unherd, 2021, "Is the WHO inventing diseases" (in reference to gaming addiction disorder), https://unherd.com/2021/11/whats-china-got-against-gaming/ https://unherd.com/2021/11/whats-china-got-against-gaming/ Any standard that allowed people to be imprisoned for spreading misinformation that was applied fairly would quite simply result in the mass imprisonment of public health officials, advisors and experts.

geofft 5y ago
That document does recommend "school measures and closures" and "workplace measures and closures" for severe epidemics, and it also does in fact recommend "internal travel restrictions" once it becomes a pandemic. Hence my question about what you mean by "lockdown." This document actually argues in favor of the sorts of things called "lockdowns" in the media, and against quarantines - which was not my personal position, but I think it definitely does not back up the claim that lockdowns (in the media sense) do not work, either. I would also note that right beside all of the things you quote is a column "Quality of evidence," and the recommendations saying that you should avoid home quarantines and border closures are based on evidence of "very low" quality. So I don't think that you or the WHO actually have evidence saying that these things don't work. The WHO just went with their gut feelings that they were bad ideas. Now we have facts, which supersede feelings. That is an appropriate, science-based reason to change your opinions. (Also, SARS-COV-2 is not an influenza pandemic, it's a SARS pandemic, and this document is about influenza.)

geofft 5y ago

That document does recommend "school measures and closures" and "workplace measures and closures" for severe epidemics, and it also does in fact recommend "internal travel restrictions" once it becomes a pandemic. Hence my question about what you mean by "lockdown." This document actually argues in favor of the sorts of things called "lockdowns" in the media, and against quarantines - which was not my personal position, but I think it definitely does not back up the claim that lockdowns (in the media sense) do not work, either. I would also note that right beside all of the things you quote is a column "Quality of evidence," and the recommendations saying that you should avoid home quarantines and border closures are based on evidence of "very low" quality. So I don't think that you or the WHO actually have evidence saying that these things don't work. The WHO just went with their gut feelings that they were bad ideas. Now we have facts, which supersede feelings. That is an appropriate, science-based reason to change your opinions. (Also, SARS-COV-2 is not an influenza pandemic, it's a SARS pandemic, and this document is about influenza.)