2 ms·
They did screw up, that’s true. Almost everyone everywhere has been wrong about this virus, mostly several if not many times. That’s because for a long time we
by simonh 5y ago
They did screw up, that’s true. Almost everyone everywhere has been wrong about this virus, mostly several if not many times. That’s because for a long time we were working with very limited and sometimes contradictory or misleading information. I do not believe that the WHO did this for nefarious reasons, or knowingly lied, although they did make some mistakes as a result of leverage and coercion by various states. I blame those states more than I do the WHO.
- strken 5y agoScrewing up disaster response for non-nefarious reasons doesn't bring back the dead. The WHO screwed up for systemic reasons that commentators, at the time and without the benefit of hindsight, were able to call out. Specifically, they repeatedly claimed there was "no evidence" for cloth masks and "no evidence" for aerosol transmission. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the organisation meant to coordinate a global medical response should know that. Many respiratory viruses spread by aerosol transmission, and it would have been responsible to say "we do not have enough evidence to say how COVID spreads yet." Additionally, there was evidence for the efficacy of cloth masks, but the papers were studying whether cloth masks were adequate replacements for surgical masks and N95 respirators in hospital settings, and they (rightly) concluded that cloth masks weren't as effective as actual PPE, from which the WHO (wrongly) concluded that cloth masks weren't effective at all.